Laufen x Snøhetta, Milano 2022
Inspired by the elegant forms and graceful movements of swans, Snøhetta and ceramics company Laufen have partnered to design a collection of immersive spatial environments. These fantastical architectural spaces and landscapes create scenes to appreciate the smooth sculptural qualities of Laufen ceramics from an other-worldly perspective. With views that play with a sense of movement, time, and scale, the perspectives capture the experience of diving into and out of water while zooming in and around the landscape, providing natural compliments to the supple and curving geometries of Laufen ceramics. By engaging with water, movement, and geometry, they allow us to reconsider how our bodies relate to space and reimagine how beauty, elegance, and wonder can be found in the everyday.
A Flock of Swans
A family of Swans approaches a mysterious house perched on a rocky fjord. The all-white house is marked by a diagonal cleave that appears, to the swans, like their own tucked-in wings. As the swans approach the floating Laufen fixtures, they wonder if the creatures inhabiting these mysterious surroundings offer more than meets the eye.
Ceramic Outcroppings
Below the surface of the water sits a world equally as surreal as the one above. As the swans peer into these icy depths, they encounter a series of new forms nestled in the seabed, not streamlined and avian creatures like those above but instead, softly rounded and weighty objects that appear to be smoothed by time and by the currents of the sea.
A Feathered Mirror
Another view takes us close in. Where once we saw landscape, we now find ourselves immersed in a ruffle of plumage, peering into the vanes of the swans’ feathers. Here, arrayed barbs offer a micro-scale approximation of Laufen’s backlit mirror design. Are we looking in or looking back at ourselves?
Floating Inside
Zooming in closer, we now find ourselves inside the belly of the swan, where swept folds and curving arches create an interior landscape that becomes home to a floating bathtub. From inside the swan, we can appreciate the sinuous beauty of the ceramics and of the bird alike.
Perched on a Bluff
Perched high above the rocky fjord, our perspective over the landscape shifts to that of the occupant residing within the house itself. Where once we saw swans in an alien landscape communing with strange creatures, we now see the swans replaced by fixtures floating in the fjord. Whether high or low, above or below, interior and exterior come to resemble one another.
