They all met at Ambiente Fairs and they were all ready for action. Although they differed considerably – three completely different technologies, different products and application –they were all looking for the common ground in design process. In the end, all three companies had been creating products belonging to the tableware canon, omnipresent in Polish homes already 50 years ago. All three stand for solid crafts work – based on knowledge and experience of generations as well as raw material locally sourced in the Lower Silesia. Additionally, they all have identities that are coded in technology and users’ awareness. And yet, today they seem long forgotten, they are associated with old-fashioned style and are currently mostly sold abroad. These companies, however, recently have been working with designers to refresh old traditions and search new ways of presenting their crafts output. And, aware of the value of this output, they were ready to take the challenge and embrace changes.
And the changes came and they were inspired by Katarzyna Świętek. She and the three companies accomplished something that has never occurred before in Polish commercial design. People from Kristoff Porcelain, Bolesławiec Manufacture and Julia Glassware in Piechowice were meeting once a month to discuss how their products were different and what they had in common, how best to expose the qualities of each material while keeping everything coherent and suitable to a given ‘food situation’. The result of their work are three tableware sets – two for breakfast and one for dessert – which had their premiere during last year’s Łódź Design Festival. Elegant crystal glass, delicate porcelain and heavy, in comparison with the former two materials, stoneware all bear a common honeycomb motif – carved in crystals, painted on white ceramics in cobalt blue. The products are light, simple and elegant. They trace back the aesthetics all three plants had been using from their very beginnings, but at the same time, they have designer, modern and functional character, which we witnessed ourselves. They have solid forms and they reflect the context they were created in – „the Polishness” which in this aspect becomes self-aware and competitive against e.g. Scandinavian or Western European design of similar objects.
The crafts technology, in which human hands touch the product innumerable times is an excellent introduction to celebrating breakfast and then crown it with gorging on the dessert. Sit at the table with the Polish products – they make the food taste better!
The tableware is only sold in sets. They are available in online stores of Kristoff Porcelain, Bolesławiec Manufacture and Glassware Julia, as well as at three retailers in Wrocław – Bolesławiec Manufacture Showroom, Stacja Dizajn and Design Expo. More info at www.polskistol.com.
Text: Agnieszka Szydziak, photos: Agnieszka Szydziak and materials of the organisers
The Polish Table – Agreement across all divides
