BEYOND EXPERIENCE
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Project Description
Memmo philosophy is a space that has gone above and beyond the 1,000-year-old traditions of the art of glass-making to create pure harmony where glass becomes fabric. Creations that have their roots in the ancient artisan craft of Venice, while at the same time representing an innovation that has gone above and beyond, in the discovery of new techniques that unite the rigidity of glass with the softness and warmth of fabric.
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Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
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Description of the project
Summary
Memmo philosophy is a space that has gone above and beyond the 1,000-year-old traditions of the art of glass-making to create pure harmony where glass becomes fabric. Creations that have their roots in the ancient artisan craft of Venice, where the art of glass blowing is still handed down from generation to generation, while at the same time representing an innovation that has gone above and beyond, in the discovery of new techniques that unite the rigidity of glass with the softness and warmth of fabrics.
The yarn-like glass is juxtaposed and superimposed on other glass threads creating a unique chromatic and tactile effect. You have the perception of caressing a fabric, while feeling the softness of the glass in an intertwining of colours, reminding you of Venice: the blue houses on Burano Island, red from the facades of the buildings overlooking the canals, the warm colours of the Lido and green from the water in the lagoon. The fusion of each colour is unique and unrepeatable, as is Venice and every object created in an artisan workshop.
The shapes of the collection are also inspired by the history of Murano, creating a bridge between the ancient traditions and a new vision of glassmaking. This new glass spinning technique, developed exclusively and registered as an innovation, uses about 500 meters of siliceous yarn for every single creation.
Key objectives for sustainability
We decide to develop this new technical in Murano Island because the Murano glass is silica-based glass with a characteristic chemical composition: it has a markedly higher expansion coefficient than Nordic borosilicate-based glass. Consequently, it reaches its melting point at lower temperatures, with a more environmentally friendly impact on energy consumption. In addition, by virtue of the lower melting point, it allows the processing with elements such as silver and with specific oxides that make it possible to cover a specific chromatic range that is unique in its kind precisely because the necessary elements melt at temperatures similar to the glass itself. The glass is a eco-friendly product because can be 100% recycling and reused. In our production process for each glass object, we have a scrap near zero, every part if not usable for size or dimension in the Filati collection is used for the Cuciti collection: the goal is not to throw anything.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
The research allowed to develop a technique that could, in his blown objects, create the perception of caressing a fabric, giving the glass softness, in a weave of colors that recall Venice. In spinning, the fusion of each color is unique and unrepeatable. From these new "murrine", which had never been made until now, a path of research was then opened up in order to make it possible to heat them to the temperature necessary to be blown into objects, even the large ones, while still maintaining the spinning and remaining juxtaposed without the use of crystal or other glass. You have the perception of caressing a fabric, while feeling the softness of the glass in an intertwining of colours, reminding you of Venice: the blue houses on Burano Island, red from the facades of the buildings overlooking the canals, the warm colours of the Lido and green from the water in the lagoon. The fusion of each colour is unique and unrepeatable, as is Venice and every object created in an artisan workshop.The shapes of the collection are also inspired by the history of Murano, creating a bridge between the ancient traditions and a new vision of glassmaking. Goto: glasses with sinuous shapes that highlight the texture of the glass. The combination recalls the perfect harmony between the diners which, although different from each other, are also complementary. Segola: represents an ancestral form that humanity continues to propose. The shape of Segola is inspired by the first terracotta artefacts and immerses itself in the tradition of glass blowing, becomes the guardian of our deepest experiences. Fiasco: form in which man has always kept the drink given by Dionysus to humanity. Simplicity is the guardian par excellence of every precious asset. Vaso: collection with essential lines that is inspired by the souls that intertwine with each other like the glass filaments of which they are made, recalling the perfect complementarity of human experience, which merges into a single element.
Key objectives for inclusion
Murano, Amurianum, is one of the largest islands in the lagoon. The first written documents on Venetian glassmaking date back to 982 A.D., the year when the name of an artisan glassmaker appears in Venice, a certain Dominicus called Phiolarius, that is glassmaker: in ancient times, in fact, the term fiole was used to indicate bottles with long necks and wide bellies. After 982 A.D., documents of other Venetian glassmakers were found, but it is only from the 13th century that most documents refer to craftsmen blowing and working glass on Murano. The reason must be found in the decision of the State of Venice, with Doge Tiepolo in 1291, to move the production of glass exclusively to Murano. Surely a cause must be found in the continuous fires that involved areas of the city. But perhaps the most important reason was to secure the knowledge of the art of glass blowing. Murano became the island of fires or glass, with a central position in the lagoon: the Serenissima Republic tried to keep under control the artisans and their knowledge that in the furnaces was handed down from generation to generation. Over centuries, in Murano, various working techniques have been developed, mostly handed down orally within the furnace, a knowledge learning by doing supervised by the master glassmaker. Today the balance between the historical production in Murano and the high logistic coast as well as and the difficult to find new young generation interested learning the art of the glass blowing, is more and more fragile. Learn how to produce with orally handed down knowledge require a long time and more time is required when there is an idea to be translate in a new technical of production. Be able to give birth to our new technic was possible only with the inclusion of people moving in a millennial story of an area and a mentality closing in the glass world and bring there in a new approach and point of view, making a bridge between past and future of the Murano Island.
Results in relation to category
The result was a new glass with patent requested. It was possible only with a new approach going beyond the experience: experience like knowledge and like perception. Memmo has gone above the 1,000-year-old traditions of the art of glass-making to create pure harmony where glass becomes fabric. Creations that have their roots in the ancient artisan craft of Venice, where the art of glass blowing is still handed down from generation to generation, while at the same time representing an innovation that has gone above and beyond, in the discovery of new techniques that unite the rigidity of glass with the softness and warmth of fabrics. The yarn-like glass is juxtaposed and superimposed on other glass threads creating a unique chromatic and tactile effect. You have the perception of caressing a fabric, while feeling the softness of the glass in an intertwining of colors, reminding you of Venice. A long research during more than 2 years with the goal to create something new throwing anything.
How Citizens benefit
Be able to give birth to our new technic was possible only with the inclusion of people moving in a millennial story of an area and a mentality closing in the glass world and bring there in a new approach and point of view, making a bridge between past and future of the Murano Island.
The island of Murano is still considered the most important place in the history of high-quality glass production. There are more or less sixty furnaces currently active, where these artifacts are created; they still make products with ancient methods handed down orally, through numerous and accurate processes and workings. It all stems from the designer Enzo Berti's idea to question a thousand-year-old technique: "In my way of approaching the product, I very often wonder why, in many cases, the method has never been questioned, if it is ever possible to see the material from another perspective in order to go beyond what has always been done." The comparison with the Murano master glassblowers was not always easy: if on the one hand there was an enormous perplexity that after centuries something different could be done, on the other hand the comparison with the world of the island heralded the search for a technique that could make the siliceous material like a real textile thread." "The path was long, but in the end, we managed to obtain a process where glass threads juxtaposed and overlapped with other glass threads create a unique chromatic and tactile effect."
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
The innovative character concerns different point: in Murano island everything is learning by doing and seeing. Change from learn how to produce with orally handed down knowledge to a science approach, studying the past, the history of the products, the raw materials and oxides reaction to difference temperature, how colors melt together was give to the new generation a new point of view of the ancien technical of blowing glass.
Craftsmanship and methodology growing up in this project together live born a new production technical and new products.
Learning transferred to other parties
Some of our results are contain in the patent requested and it's for us impossible to share them at the moment. The documentation could be found the attached book Beyond Experience.
About the methodology I goes through follow phases:
- Translating an idea without constraints into sketches in which the objects were obtained using glass as a fabric to give three-dimensionality to the material and create a unique chromatic effect, trying to use the siliceous yarn as the threads of a fabric.
- Research on fabrics and colors to understand how a color is obtained by intertwining different colors that blend together giving life to different shades. Analyzing various types of weaving.
- Historical research through consultation of books, visits to museums and meetings with the masters of Venetian furnaces to understand how glass threads are produced, what had already been done, how they are combined, which objects were made and with what kind of technique.
- After this first phase of analysis, sketches and after 3D models were created for the realization of glass threads and the subsequent creation of objects with glass threads.
- The idea was then exposed to some glass masters. Only one agreed to take the time to accomplish something defined by the majority as impossible.
- An approach was used in which all the tests were written with colors, sizes, temperatures in order to keep a written record of all the attempts, the problems that emerged and the solutions found.
- This phase was a relatively long period made up of a succession of tests that led to an approximation of the product obtained to the initial idea.
- Research of names for the different objects able to translate the history and the research under this new technical.
- Once the glass fabric was obtained and managed to blow it into relatively large shapes for this kind of technic, the patent was requested for the production part, while the colors and shapes were deposited by ADI.
- Write a book telling the path that led