Shippo Plates
Date: 2007
Commissioned by: Cibone, Tokyo (available here)
Type: Unlimited product
Enamel – an ancient technique in a contemporary form. A series of plates designed by Hella Jongerius.
For Cibone Hella Jongerius has created a series of plates with an enamel skin, using an age-old, almost forgotten technique. “Traditional enamelling technique opens up possibilities that are in perfect harmony with my working methods and ideas about design. Furthermore, this technique shows strong similarities to the ceramics with which I often work. Like glaze on clay, enamel gives objects a multicoloured, lustrous skin, an effect that is almost impossible to obtain with other techniques. And enamelling technique allows skilled artisans to make very delicate drawings on the surface. That provided opportunities that mesh with the subjects I am working on now.”
Enamelling has a rich history. In Europe, it was used mainly in the Middle Ages to produce elegant jewellery. In the 20th century, it remained in use for colourful outdoor advertising boards, but by now, the craft has practically died out in Europe. This happened for various reasons, such as the high cost and great fragility of enamel work, which makes it unsuitable for industrial production. In Japan, however, the technique has been carefully preserved – a fact which inspired Jongerius to visit the country and learn more about it. “The Japanese enamelling experts (Shippo masters from Nagoya) introduced us to the technique, showing the results of years of tradition and refinement. For a designer like me, respect and appreciation are the only possible response to such a display of artistry. Inspired by this body of knowledge, we have aimed to wholeheartedly celebrate the wealth and diversity of enamelling techniques and the differences between Dutch and Japanese culture, in new designs that bring the present and past together.”
Why return to this age-old technique?
While globalization, technological innovation and high-speed Internet access characterize the 21st century, at the same time there is a growing interest in tradition, ancient techniques and local crafts. It would be simplistic to attribute these tendencies to mere nostalgia for the past, and equally simplistic to link them to the glorification of craftsmanship for its own sake. In Jongerius’ work, traditional methods of production do not represent the glorification of the past, which she always pairs with the present. Nor do they serve to glorify her own master craftsmanship, since she leaves the execution in the hands of others. She does not simply perpetuate the tradition, but adds its range of possibilities to the rich palette available to the 21st-century designer.
The enamel plates for Cibone allude to a fantasy world, where animals and silhouettes merge with objects. They are related to the subject matter of two earlier Jongeriuslab projects, which above all fire the imagination. Office Pets (first exhibited as part of Vitra Edition, a collection of limited editions, at the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein in 2007) are peculiar objects that evoke both office furniture and a world beyond everyday reality. Their functionality lies, paradoxically, in their uselessness. In the most recent Jongeriuslab’ project (wooden tables which will be exhibited for the first time at Galerie Kreo in Paris in the fall of 2007) the surface of the tables fuses with forms that are equal parts animal and abstraction. Like the Office Pets, these sculptural tables seem to defy the distinction between art and design. But Jongerius herself clearly describes them as functional objects that draw on a new concept of functionality.
Design has historically depended on functionality and industrial reproduction, rather than unique objects or limited series with artistic aspirations that would seem more at home in the world of artisans or artists. But over the past century, the concept of functionality has evolved, from an instrumental concept to one that leaves room for additional values. Design is about image, meaning and narrative power. In the Cibone plates, we can read that narrative power, both in the images that decorate them and in their enamel skin, which attests to an age-old technique that is still vibrantly alive and full of infinite possibility.