The weight of the stone is indicated by the shape of the glass, the stone itself imitates brass weights from old merchant’s shops
We had recently carried out a review of natural stone design and came to the conclusion that 3 categories were currently emerging in this still young discipline: classic product design, functional sculptures and fun objects. We wrote that in those fun objects the use of natural stone is quite unexpected and that it is exactly the items that want to surprise and make people laugh.
Mind you: that which is ironic is very serious, because humor is an art.
Presenting Moreno Ratti’s current collection with the title „Ironic”. Ratti is a designer from the Carrara area, so marble is his preferred material. He has a very relaxed and casual approach to the material, even though it has been surrounded by a heavy aura since the sculptures of antiquity and Michelangelo.
This time Moreno Ratti even wants to give the stone a „touch of humor” with his design, as he himself writes. The material should not always be perceived as so distant and cold, he notes.
The path of his inspiration was apparently unbridled. For he took the weight of the stone, and once he had gone through it, he experienced how a piece of marble would compress a piece of glass when hot. „Collapse” is therefore the name of the vase.
The weight also appears concretely in the design, in that the marble part of the object copies the shape of the brass weights from old merchant’s shops.
The upper and lower parts together form the vase, and the user can also assign this function to the glass alone. But then the question remains what to do with the marble lid … here again creativity is called for, this time on the part of the user.
„Collapse” is only available as a limited edition. There are 3 variants (height 23/29/25cm, diameter 15/12/10cm). There are 9 copies of each variant, each with a certificate of authenticity. The copies are handmade. There is no waste, Ratti emphasizes.
Photos: Moreno Ratti
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(21.04.2020, USA: 04.22.2020)
