Glass Box

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 02:26

Lasvit is a young company, it appeared in 2007, but has already occupied its niche as a manufacturer of custom-made "large-format" art glass, both purely decorative and functional - lamps, facades, internal partitions. She also makes serial items - lamps, dishes and other handmade household items. All this is created in the tradition of Bohemian glass, but in collaboration with Ross Lovegrove, Kengo Kuma, Daniel Libeskind, etc.

The headquarters in Novi Bor is a reflection of both of these lines. In the north of Bohemia, in the "Crystal Valley", where this city is located, glass blowers began to work in the 15th century, and two of the four buildings of the new complex on Palacky Square are historical houses from the end of the 18th century associated with the local glass industry. At the same time, the project of the ensemble was developed by the OV-A bureau from Prague, the same age as Lasvit, not at all supporters of blind copying of the past.

Штаб-квартира компании Lasvit Фото © Tomáš Souček

Штаб-квартира компании Lasvit © OV Architekti S. R. O

In the 19th century, two historical buildings were connected by a now not preserved passage: in its place was erected both a traditional house resembling a silhouette and an old casket. He immediately makes it clear that they are engaged in glass making: the facades and the roof are made of glass tiles. It was invented specifically for the project, but it also has a traditional element: its outline resembles the roofing slate, which is traditionally used to cover roofs here in the Ceska Lipa region.

The basis was bent glass, which was turned into a tile using paper forms: naturally, these forms are disposable, so each "scale" is unique. To achieve the intended result, I had to spend several months of trial and error at the stove. Part of the tile is square, part is elongated, diamond-shaped, depending on the place of installation. Special shapes were made for the roof, doorways and corners. On the walls, tiles of 60x60 cm (7.5 kg) were used, on the roof - 60x120 cm (12 kg), the thickness of any of them is 8 mm. In total, 1400 pieces with a total weight of about 14 tons were taken to cover the house from the ground to the ridge of the roof.

Image

zooming

1/5 Lasvit headquarters Photo © Tomáš Souček
zooming

2/5 Lasvit headquarters Photo © Tomáš Souček
zooming

3/5 Lasvit headquarters Photo © Tomáš Souček
zooming

4/5 Lasvit headquarters Photo © Tomáš Souček
zooming

5/5 Lasvit headquarters Photo © Tomáš Souček

The facade is self-supporting, the frame of the building is metal; the architects took into account the contraction and expansion of both materials during freezing and thawing. Each tile is fixed in only one corner, and in the other three it is clamped by neighboring copies. Its layout is borrowed from the same place, from the masonry of slate roofs. A small gap is left between the tiles for cleaning, and their surface is covered with nano-paint that does not react to ultraviolet light, so that moss and any other vegetation cannot stay there.

The interiors receive enough light through the façade during the day, and in the evenings the building glows from the inside like a "glass-making beacon". On the ground floor there is a cafe for employees, on the second there is an archive of Lasvit products, which can also be used as a conference room. An unusual concrete vault is hidden under the traditional roof.

The second new building is more modest and "closed": it also resembles a traditional house in silhouette and is inspired by slate roofs, only its shell is also lined with black metal panels specially made for the project. It is a four-level space, partially buried in the ground, where large chandeliers and "light sculptures" weighing up to five tons can be tested and displayed. Two historical buildings were freed from later layering and were converted into offices.

Considering that the creation of the Lasvit headquarters included the restoration and revalorization of state-protected architectural monuments, the leadership of the Liberec Region, where Novi Bor is located, allocated 300 thousand Czech crowns for the project.

zooming

1/5 Historical photos of the complex Courtesy of OV Architekti S. R. O.
zooming

2/5 Historical photos of the complex Courtesy of OV Architekti S. R. O.
zooming

3/5 Historical photos of the complex Courtesy of OV Architekti S. R. O.
zooming

4/5 Historical photos of the complex Courtesy of OV Architekti S. R. O.
zooming

5/5 Historical photos of the complex Courtesy of OV Architekti S. R. O.