Thrill in French means a roof tile and the idea of the roof tile is to be able to have
one element that is repetitive and we can build any form we want.
The idea started as being, it's a technical defeat for that sort of material to get the
clarity, to get the reflection, to get the beauty of the crystal and so on and then to
make something which is creating each number of products that we can see here, different
diameters and different ways of presenting it, but also in a way what I call an ego-friendly
system where architects or interior designers would take the one element and build with it
in a way anything one wants. But the beauty of this project in my eyes is also how to breed
300 or 250 years of history of Vakara and the history of our living environment and what is
light and what is a lamp. So we understand a lamp shade, when you say a lamp shade,
automatically what you see is a cone in this proportions more or less. So it is a sort of
a common understanding of what a lamp shade is and I took this stereotype and put it in the
context of Vakara and made it out of crystal, not by molding one piece of crystal because
it's possible but it's something plastic would do better, but doing it with the pieces that are
coming together, one next to the other, putting, it also facilitates the way of putting the light
together, shipping it, the transport, the logistics, everything comes with it and you
literally can be receiving this at home, putting your own roof tiles around your lamp shade and
making your own lamps, sort of participating in the process. Creating different diameters
permits to integrate the lamp with this piece in different environments, in big rooms or in
small rooms. One big issue of chandeliers is the dimension. Chandeliers initially were made for
palaces, for concert halls, for theatres, they were not having the constraints of being 2 meters
70 in ceiling height or 3 meters 20 if you are really lucky. So when you put a chandelier,
if I want to put a chandelier in my home, I have to wear a helmet because I will always bang into
it and I think it's the environment, it's the conditions we are most of us has. This pollution
is more architecturally friendly, it also talks with the proportion, it talks with the environment
around it, it talks with the relationship between its form and the architecture itself,
contemporary architecture or minimalist architecture, what we live today and recalls better
this sort of form and it's a correlation which is more integrated and more harmonious yet when
you put it on, you feel the crystal, you see the reflection, you see the value that reflection in
crystal and the breaking of the light brings in. That brings me to another subject, we look at
the tile itself, we have made, we have designed different designs, one is a chaotic cross,
crisscross of lines which are physically cut into the crystal that creates an effect of prisma
and the prisma diffuses the light and capture also the environment, the colors and the light,
the general lighting environment. There is another model which is called St. Ferrodera,
which is a more regular cutting that refers to the history of glass cutting into bakara and it
gives us within the same contemporary actual present future form, generic form, two approaches,
a very contemporary one and something that recalls history but project history into the future.
I would say the reaction of bakara as a partner was very, the beginning was wow because when you
make a drawing or you make a new special of an idea that immediately feels that you know it
and it's still new, it's like meeting your love of your life, somebody you just met but you feel
you're knowing from 3000 years and that sensation which was very encouraging because we didn't really
know what to do at the beginning, it was just like well look at this idea, it's a metaphor,
it's a transposition of what we know and what we don't know in the same thing, so that was very
positive and then we started to test it and all this cutting which I now made in a mold,
so we all did all the tests and we did many of them cut by hand which is what bakara knows how
to do and does from 255 years. The reaction was interesting is how to move from hand cutting
into machine cutting into mold and how to bring to maximum efficiency the system, it's know-how,
it's material, it's a way of doing things and we might know how my system, my ability of
merging these things together. Another positive thing was that to create something that we can
still call a chandelier without losing what a chandelier is so it's difficult today to create
products that obtain or maintain the DNA, the real DNA of the brand or the company you work with
because bakara is not a marketing DNA, it's a reality DNA, it's the way we did it,
it's the way we do it, it's the way we're going to keep on doing it, how to maintain this DNA
and project it into the future without losing your looking back with a say oh that's my tail
and looking in front and say oh that's where I want to go, it's going to be a new fish
in this aquarium of very old young fish and very big and small fish but it's going to be,
it has its own identity but what I particularly appreciate in it is that when you look at it
it's familiar without end still new and that is the, I think this is a rare quality in a product
but in Milan what we're going to see also is the architectural application of the
tree, of the roof tile, we can create endless walls in any dimension, we can have a round,
it could be just covering a pillar, it could have light or not light, it could be next to a
window and benefit from the natural light of the sunset or what not so it's really an architectural
work, an architectural construction piece that you can build whatever one feels is the right thing
so I also think it's in design of today obsessiveness of this is my design, it's a new way also to say
hey interior architects, architects, decorators, this is a this is a raw material, refined raw
material which you can work with and generate and create whatever you think is correct somebody
wants to put a red line behind it great if somebody wants to put it horizontal make a table with
great it's I think this is a level of generosity and openness and open-minded approach into product
design today and to what we call the domestic environment for not calling it decorative because
I think at the end it is a product design project it has industrial manufacturing techniques
constraints reality and it has to hold both the financial reality the brand reality my signature
reality and the market needs or the future market needs because we are not here only to keep on
putting the classic chandeliers because it's a la mode we're here to propeller and to project
what I do will take life in five years and we started this project a couple of years ago
and it's a process where we have to first digest and appropriate then we are able to project and
was a long answer to your short question but it is a very overwhelming process
the relationship I have with the factory is is special for me as you can see I know the people
I know that by the name we've seen each other now for 10 years or more when I started with Bakara
what I said I said the only way for me to collaborate is to sleep in the factory there
looked at me and said this guy lost his nuts and I said no no it's the only way I want to
understand I want to know everybody physically I have lunch with them at breakfast at dinner
I listen to the machine I know what the machine is doing more or less I have this great passion to
technology to technique and to know how especially the know how which is gathered with the person
itself is the way the person if you look at somebody who's doing cold engraving is dancing
in front of the machine he's dancing in front of the cutting wheel and he has his own choreography
and each one will dance differently to have his own sort of way of doing so I had to come several
times we had a lot of prototypes coming to us a lot of discussion a lot of Skype meetings a lot of
emails but many many own hands-on tests like we do today because what they do
they can embrace the the technique and the parts and the evolution of what what are the
technical technical requirements of a product be in a domestic environment with all the rules
worldwide and so on but I'm the only one who can embrace the feeling and the emotion I come in and
I I they give me the the fact that it's hanging and it's secure this is what they give to me
as facility and I can deal with does it do is it like that or is it like that is it like wow
and where is the wow and by by eliminating a third of the light bulb I get the better light effect
and this is something that I can do this is the understanding of light and the quality of light
that I have that I worked since many years and I know what to do and how to deal with it
so it's a workshop environment as advantages and disadvantages one have to know how to bring
them together and make sure you don't miss anything because the home doesn't look like this and it's
not mine well I'd love to live here it says point of security so you want to stand if you
you go to a dinner you come to a home or to a restaurant and you look at the space and you
have this almost fireflies out of crystal and then you come and you sit underneath one of them
and you discover something new and different that's what you used to see with lighting and we
chanted there with the what it's almost a functional it's in the lights culture it's like a functional
art and that is that is good it's important you see me say wow I've never seen something like this
look at the parts it's also like a fish it's also like many things that we will see you can see in
nature you take a pine the way a pine on a pine tree is made it has it has actually almost like
a roof style structure and this is basically where roof styles are coming you can see the water
running on the pine it's actually running down like it would run on the roof style
today is the I'll say the first time after we had a big batch of production of tiles so we could
see the first time and complete the tree style in the different finishes complete with the structure
and so on because what we saw so far is partial because things were cut by hand it's very expensive
and long and does not reflect what the reality was so it enables me to test and I am now I now
don't look at the dinosaur anymore or the elephant I'm dealing with the eyelashes and with the little
thing and how the skin texture is and the way it will talk and how it will smell and so I'm taking
off doing it's really like it's like arranging a dish and dinner you put you put you put the steak on
the steak is done and then you add on some some some green beans and you add and then you add two
more it doesn't change anything nutritionally but it makes the dish look right and then you put a
little bit more of carrots or whatever pure so that's what I do now changing some of the details
so they disappear or make appear what I want controlling the light quality taking off
green cards which were technically there but so whole things but not refined technically
arranging the relationship between the object and the ceiling where the ceiling is there what we
don't have here studying all this and talking about something which is extremely important for me
is the maintenance how you clean it how you refresh it you can practically take the the tiles
put them in the dishwasher and wash your chandelier this is a revolution in housewiping
technology because at home I'm the one who's doing this stuff so I'm so happy to have you know an
easier life and the second thing is how how the piece is delivered how you mount it because
this piece may be cost 15 or 16 or 18 000 euro and it's a lot of money and it has to be something
which is you prevent any breaking risk that it's easy to put together as normally you come in the
apartment so the the homes are already made you can't just come in with machines or so and it has
to be clean the people with gloves so all this is very important you the person who acquire one of
my pieces I would like them to feel privileged and happy and treated all the way till they put
the switch on and say wow that's that's what we imagine imagine that's what we want and this sort
of attention comes with the with the knowledge or with the experience that I have with the artwork
that I'm doing on the other side because when you buy a piece of art it gets to your home it's like
it's like the jewel of the day and it can't be just a big cardboard box which you don't know where
to open and when you open all the parts are falling and you're getting upset and confused and so
so it has to be an experience all the way and these people come home do their thing they have
it lit it's fantastic they go to dinner with friends and what they say they say today we got this
amazing thing and it was great to put it together it took only 15 minutes you know so easy in the
life it's beautiful and all these words is what I want people to say about the product I like it I
don't like it it's personal that I come in for it so
