Object
Arched Centrepiece
Wallpaper* Magazine
2019
Artisanal precision is at the core of the Arched centrepiece. For Wallpaper* Handmade X, Norwegian silver manufacturer Arven and Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Guglielmo Poletti design a seemingly simple ‘conversation piece’.
Titled Arched, the result of their collaboration is a seemingly simple composition of silver rods held by two brass supports, suspended to create a centrepiece – or a ‘conversation piece’ to gather people around the table, as Poletti describes it – that is both functional and poetic in its purity of form.
The bars were bent by hand with custom tools to create a perfect curve, then welded to brass supports. ‘Getting the exact same gap between the bars was essential to the look we wanted,’ explains Arven’s owner Lilli-Anne Alver. ‘The bars could not be forced into another shape after the welding process was done.’
‘I see the pureness of the outcome as an ode to silver, a tribute to the material itself,’ says Poletti. ‘We spent most of the time trying to understand the material’s behaviour. The shape emerged from the material itself, its geometry being a pure consequence of the structure.’ The pair kept experimenting up until the moment the very last finishing touches were applied using a glass-blasting technique that gives the silver a subtle texture.
The finished product merges artisanal precision and creative intuition, a fitting synthesis of the two collaborators.
Wallpaper* Magazine
Typology
Object
Name
Arched Centrepiece
Client
Wallpaper* Magazine
Year
2019
Overall dimensions
70 cm (L) × 11,5 cm (D) × 6,5 cm (H)
Materials
Brushed sterling silver, brushed brass
Editions
One-off
Photography
Giulia Piermartiri