All the Invisible’ is a new film by art director Federico Pepe that celebrates the work of Glas Italia, a company that grew from the traditions of Italian glass making and for more than 40 years has explored the ancient craft through innovation and collaboration with designers like Patricia Urquiola, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and Piero Lissoni.
It was 1970 when the Arosio family launched Glas Italia in Brianza. The company founded on the traditions of Italy’s glass craftsmanship was established at a time of huge manufacturing progress and innovation in Italy, and during the formation of Italy’s design industry. A long collaboration with designers including Ettore Sottsass in the early years, and more recently Tokujin Yoshioka, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Patricia Urquiola and Piero Lissoni, forged the development of innovative manufacturing processes in tune with the calibre of the creatives they brought into their research and development factory. It is this deep knowledge and passion for glass that shapes the work and underpins the film ‘All the Invisible’
“This project has been created to magnify the many phases that lie behind each Glas Italia product”, remarks Federico Pepe who art directed the film. “The aim is to make the invisible visible and to accompany the spectator in a suggestive staged journey where creativity, ancient knowledge and advanced industrial techniques make possible the production of extremely refined glass objects.”
The Sherazade glass sliding door collection designed by Piero Lissoni plays with the effect of light, colour and transparency. Photo c/o Glas Italia.
The Aladdin pocket door system was the first door collection designed by Piero Lissoni for Glas Italia and it established a design approach focused on the application of glass textures and colours to architectural components. Book designed by Lissoni Associati. Photo c/o Glas Italia.
For Piero LIssoni, material, form and process is the fundamental starting point. Lissoni Associate works across architecture, graphics, exhibition and furniture design where “the creative process behind the final product is fed by a never-ending stream of inspiration and experiment”. One project often leads to another, and in the case of the designer’s latest project for Glas Italia, Sherazade, the collection of texture-rich glass doors follows a multi-layered tile collection for Cotto and a series of rug designs for Golran.
Playing with the interpretation of invisible and visible, Piero Lissoni describes Sherazade as a “contemporary reinterpretation of the ancient cathedral window”. The effect of light and colour, sometimes obscured, sometimes visible, informs the collection, while the Patchwork extension expands the thinking with an elegant four-part glass panel breakup and a decorative range of crystal finishes. It is a highly flexible design range that is both standardised and custom-made, allowing the integration of the collection into most common door systems.
‘All the Invisible’ explores the behind-the-scenes process that goes into designs like Sherazade, where molten glass meets high-end technology, sculptural ingenuity and practical application. Without that vision, that passion, and the risk-taking that comes with it, Glas Italia would never have been able to achieve such beauty.
Designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, the Rayures collection of textual glass screens expands on the Aladdin and Sharazade collections with a series of moveable interior screens that use the wonderful effects of glass to obscure or not. Photo c/o Glas Italia.
