LU Murano

Designer

Fabio Fornasier Glass Lighting Designer

Interviews

Light evolves in harmonious asymmetry

by Andrea Costanza
published in May 2010 in the ARCHITETTURA supplement issued with Italian newspaper "il Giornale"

From Italy's Northeast to countries all across the globe. Master glassmaker Fabio Fornasier reaps success from his latest line of chandeliers, the LU Murano collection. The result of research, devotion and internationally acclaimed experimentation that, oddly enough, is "snubbed" back in Italy.

Fabio Fornasier Glass Lighting Designer

It can't be easy achieving a harmonious marriage between time-honoured traditions stretching back thousands of years and innovative design concepts. At the end of the day, though, this is part of what the Venetian island of Murano is all about. An ancient art, with its own rules, its own people versed in the craft, put to the service of modern ingenuity, the latest styles, the artistic visions of the future. All this is epitomized by the recent success enjoyed by the chandeliers from the LU Murano collection, the product of the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of one of the youngest master glassmakers on the island. Fabio Fornasier was born into the glass trade. Barely into his teens, he started learning the Venetian master glassmakers' ancient secrets from his father, Luigi, straight away showing a flair for the most difficult and complex techniques. He went on to teach at the most important glass and design schools in the world, taking in aesthetic concepts and gaining a sense of the taste of different countries and cultures. A landmark moment was meeting his friend Richard Meitner on a trip to Holland, during which the famous designer asked Fornasier to run glass-blowing seminars at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. His flair earned him the UK Lighting Design Award of the year 2010, to which the LU chandelier was a contributing factor. An artwork whose prototype, presented at Vitraria in 2004 – a longstanding Venetian glass exhibition and the most established – prompted this comment from Rosa Barovier Mentasti: "LU is the most innovative chandelier to come out of Murano in the last thirty years." We spoke to the master glassmaker himself about his creation:

How did the idea for the LU chandelier come about?

«The chandeliers in the LU Murano collection are the result of years devoted to researching and experimenting and creating the prototypes. I felt the need to come up with a different chandelier, one that was new in its design – yet consistent with tradition – in its structure and in its method of assembly.».

How has your work been received?

«I've had some very gratifying responses. I refer, for example, to the Venice Architecture Biennale, more specifically to the side event CZ, which I took part in back in 2006, when I was asked to exhibit the VI, a Rezzonico-style Venetian glass chandelier made by recycling 180 Antica Fratta wine bottles, which were ground and reworked while hot. Then there was the ReWine chandelier, which earned me third prize at the Cheongju Biennale in South Korea in 2007».

While it was the LU chandelier that earned you the top prize at the UK Lighting Design Awards. It would seem you have more success abroad than you do in Italy.

«That's partly true. I'm at a loss to explain the absence of Italian art galleries knocking on my door, which is in contrast with the keen interest and appreciation I get from many of their foreign counterparts».

What do you like most about your latest collection?

«It would have to be its sense of motion, that asymmetrical dynamism: it's a little bit crazy and yet it's harmonious, almost as though it's been gently ruffled by a puff of wind. The motion isn't duplicated though, instead it's been conceived for each individual piece, changing from chandelier to chandelier. Each of my clients or collectors has his or her own very personal LU».

Some people on Murano have criticized you for teaching Venetian techniques abroad, and not just in Europe.

«It's true, I've taught all over the world. But I don't hold myself responsible for letting Venice's technical secrets out. Other masters were responsible for that, and have been disclosing secrets since the '50s, for money».

Do you mean you do your teaching for free?

«Not at all. But the students attending my courses are mainly concerned with understanding how to relate to the glass, whether to interpret the material as artisans or artists. The technique, on the other hand, can be learned virtually anywhere nowadays, even online. I can understand the people who look back nostalgically on the Venetian Republic in its prime when, to safeguard the secrets of glassmaking, the executioner would be ordered to cut off the right hand, or even the head, of master glassmakers guilty of violating the secret. But in this day and age, it seems to me more a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted».



A medley of air and fire, transparency, style, creativity

by Chiara Marsceglia, published in November 2010 in the CODICE CD supplement in collaboration with Italian business paper "Il Sole 24 Ore"

A medley of air and fire. A medley of transparency, style, creativity that, while spawned by tradition, breaks the traditional mould to assert itself as an innovative concept of prestige, partly through the use of "unusual" materials.

We're talking about the chandelier LU, that exclusive entity whose simplicity is concentrated in that essence of light and luxury. 100 pieces a year for a select few. And a price that sets the seal on its absolute added value, becoming a distinguishing trait. "An involuntary marketing operation for all intents and purposes – smiles Master Glassmaker Fabio Fornasier, creator and founder of the LU Murano brand – but one that was immediately popular worldwide." Starting the day Fornasier, in a fully frescoed Austrian church, lit the wick of the impressive oil chandelier, marking the real fusion between the historic nature of an almost forgotten action, the Venetian glass-working technique and the experimental bent of a sui generis artist. "I'm not swimming against the tide – he says to set the record straight – I simply believe in and ride the wave of new ideas. The more complex a Venetian glass creation is, the more beautiful it is considered: the way I see it, the more simplified an object's manufacture, the more difficult it becomes. Because it's hard to devise." And so the concept according to Fabio Fornasier took the international audience by storm. One of the most exciting moments was winning the first prize at the Venice Biennale in 1996, in the young glass artists section and, in 2007, securing a podium place at the Cheongju Biennale in Korea, out of 1000 contenders. Not to mention that, in 2006, he was the first glassmaker from Murano in many years to also be invited to the Architecture Biennale. Fabio Fornasier took 180 Franciacorta wine bottles and used traditional methods to fashion them into an original high-design piece. "Now more than ever – he finishes off by saying – what makes something successful is the idea: as prestigious as it may be, the material no longer makes the artist." Meanwhile, he can look to the future with the strength of a registered decorative design patent, awaiting only to be revealed when the time is right.