Cecilie Manz: Magic of Invisible Matter
Copenhagen-based designer Cecilie Manz focuses on designing for home – furniture, lamps, tableware and glass.
Designer Cecilie Manz opened her own studio in Copenhagen in 1998 after graduation from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts’ School of Design. Her designs include a selection of industrial products, but experimental and sculptural one-off pieces are just as significant to her work than the industrially produced pieces – as she says, they are both fragments of an ongoing story.
Glass Is Tomorrow interviewed Manz on her work on glass and attending a Glass Is Tomorrow workshop in Nuutajärvi, Finland, in 2011.
Glass is Tomorrow: From where does your affinity for glass derive? Why is this medium different from others?
Cecilie Manz: Glass is clear! That must be the key point: designing in an invisible material creates a kind of magic.
How would you describe the process of developing and blowing glass-based designs?
CM: The actual design process isn’t all that different – there are always technical restrictions and limitations – but where glass differs is that the last steps of production are essential: either it looks great or is completely hopeless.
What was your experience working with Glass is Tomorrow?
CM: I enjoyed participation in Glass is Tomorrow. For me, such projects are crucial in preserving, developing and keeping craftsmanship alive. •
Glass Is Tomorrow is a European network, which aims at establishing more fluid exchange of knowledge and competencies between glass and design professionals in the north, south, east and west of Europe. Glass Is Tomorrow is initiated and organized by Brussels-based creative agency Pro Materia, which also publishes TLmagazine with Paris-based publishing house Bookstorming.
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