“At Incalmi, everything becomes one.” It is the first point of our manifesto, and it describes the experimental process that leads us to the combination of different materials. The primary characteristic of our objects is in fact that they are multi-material. We use glass, metals, marble, wood, rattan, leather — the materials of traditional Italian craftsmanship, which we reread in the light of a contemporary aesthetic. In this series of articles, we explore them one by one. Here is glass, one of our materials of choice.
Why glass?
Glass is a solid, hard material with a transparent, translucent or opaque appearance. Originally it is a dry mixture of sand and dust that, brought to 1400°, becomes a liquid mixture, ready to be shaped. The mixture takes on different colors thanks to the addition of other substances — from cobalt for blue to selenium or copper for red, from chrome for green to fluorinated compounds for milky white opal. The processing of glass then takes on many forms starting from the initial blowing, the artisanal technique with which molten glass is shaped by blowing inside a barrel.