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Francisco Vieira Martins talks about his Cabaça container.
By Paul Makovsky
December 2002
Portuguese designer Francisco Vieira Martins (b. 1977) graduated in 2001
with a degree in industrial design from ESTGAD, in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal.
He then took a glassware course for young designers, promoted by Vitrocristal,
and trained at the Canividro glass factory, in Marinha Grande. In addition
to designing vases, bowls, and candlesticks for Canividro, where he was
hired this year as a full-time designer, he is also designing for other
glass and ceramic factories in Marinha Grande.
For more than two and a half centuries the Marinha Grande region in Portugal
has been one of the biggest glass and crystal making centers in the world.
In 1994 a group of private and government organizations banded together,
forming the Vitrocristal project, which aims to promote glass factories
in the region. The Marinha Grande Mglass brand was exhibited at this year's
Maison et Objet show in Paris, which increasingly is a place to discover
not only the work of French designers but designers from all over the world.
I spoke to Francisco Vieira Martins, one of 41 young Portuguese designers
who are working with Vitrocristal, about his remarkable new container.
It's called Cabaça, which means "gourd" in Portuguese.
When I was developing the project I thought of calling it Gourd It, to say
to the consumer that the individual pieces of glass can be shaped into a
gourd. The art director of Mglass decided to call it Cabaça, because,
from a marketing point of view, a Portuguese name and manufacturer would
be a more interesting sell.
The idea for this piece was that of constructing an object from different
pieces. I began with the shape of a gourd--a traditional Portuguese glass
form. I wanted to play with the idea of a historical shape and turn it into
something else.
I've used very typical shapes, which made the production of the glass pretty
straightforward.
The gourd is made of clear glass. At one point, when I had the final
prototype, I thought of making the container with a textured glass with
lines, but I realized there would be a big problem in placing the pieces
on top of one another, and that the relationship between the pieces wouldn't
work as well as with clear glass. So I decided in the end just to make it
in clear glass, which gives it a pure feeling because the form is so organic.
One problem was joining the container's different parts. I initially thought
the forms should join in a horizontal plan but realized it was too complex.
Because I wanted the container to be more organic, I decided to join the
parts in vertical layers, which is more connected to the language of the
glass.
I thought about what would happen if you were to cut the gourd into three
different parts. Wouldn't it be nice if you could have three different useful
pieces of glass with different functions, but could reconfigure them
to form the shape of a gourd? At first I thought the individual pieces
should have the same height, but it wouldn't look very interesting.
The bottom can be used as a dish, the middle layer as a bowl, and the top
layer as a vase. You can use the pieces of glass individually or put them
together to form one sculptural shape. I tried to design each piece in dimensions
that suit its function.
Cabaça is available from Mglass: (212) 725-7690
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