Coffee Pot

Coffee Pot is one of a series of five containers, made from repurposed Val Saint-Lambert glass, that have been mounted in bronze and presented on gaudy pedestals. The collection was developed by the Antwerp-based Studio Job in association with the Belgian luxury glassware manufacturer Val Saint-Lambert. The idea for the collection arose when Studio Job designers Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel came across a supply of 100-year-old crystal blanks at the Val Saint-Lambert factory that were never made into finished products. The designers transformed five pieces of the unfinished stock by reworking them into unique vessels, including a coffee pot, a waste basket, a saucepan, a pickle barrel, and a casserole. The form of Coffee Pot is based on the commercial borosilicate glass and plastic coffee pots that are found in gas stations and roadside diners across America. Studio Job has been called “one of the strangest and most exciting design firms working in Europe today.” Some of the studio’s notorious creations include a Rock Sofa, which resembles a giant geode, a cabinet with a carnival-mirrorlike front, and a table inlaid with images of skulls and crossbones. The designers’ taste for whimsical ornamentation, functional ambiguity, and ironic social commentary makes them stand out in the worlds of design and visual art. Studio Job objects and furnishings are characterized by the use of highly refined materials and expensive craftsmanship. Typically, the works are produced by skilled craftspeople and reflect the designers’ fetishistic interest in technical perfection. References to history and craft traditions stem from the couple’s research on collections of European decorative arts, ranging from the Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden to The Wallace Collection in London.