 |
| Capped, 2010 |
From vacuum cleaners to soap, Sebastian Bergne has built up an impressive and varied portfolio of work over the years. However it is his work with glass that he has chosen to exhibit at Somerset House this month in celebration of 20 years of his design studio. Sebastian told us "I wanted the exhibition to chronicle the first 20 years of my life as a designer but not by doing a predictable retrospective type exhibition." Instead he has presented a selection of carefully edited projects with glass.
 |
| Left: Coffee machine, 1988 Right: Cork Stem Glass, 2008 |
He says "Throughout my career working with glass has been an opportunity to design exactly as I like, for my own pleasure ... None of the projects displayed have been in production, some are prototypes that never happened others are designs I made for personal use or for an event." Pieces include rarely seen designs such as a coffee machine; his graduation project from the RCA in 1988 and a collection of shot glasses called 'Dizzy' that he designed for his wedding in 1996.
 |
| Dizzy, 1996 |
Sebastian has also created a new champagne flute design especially for the show (top image). The Flute is part of the wider collection 'Capped', the design uses different dimensions of glass tubing that have been sealed with bright yellow caps. Sebastain explains "The capped glasses started as an experiment in reduction. The different typologies of glassware are reduced to simple cylindrical proportion and the production effort is reduced by simply capping the tubes with plastic end caps. Interestingly this has then added the colour element that brings something more and new."
http://www.sebastianbergne.com/
Ali Morris
Trends and Events Analyst, Interiors