Oct 25, 2015 | By Tess
Renowned Danish metalware brand Georg Jensen has recently collaborated with Australian designer Marc Newson to create a limited edition sculptural tea service. This marks Newson’s first collaboration with design house Georg Jensen, which was founded over a century ago.
Marc Newson
Marc Newson is an internationally recognized industrial designer who is based in the United Kingdom. He has worked in such design fields as aircraft design, and product design, as well as in furniture, jewellery, and clothing design. Some of his notable works include a fountain pen for French design house Hermès, a series of pens featuring rare metals for Montblanc, and a limited-edition samurai sword. In September of 2014, Newson also started working for Apple, Inc. as part of their design team.
Georg Jensen, which does not often collaborate with contemporary artists and designers, was excited to work with Marc Newson. Georg Jensen CEO David Chu explains, “Marc Newson was, for me, really the only choice to design a new tea service for Georg Jensen. Through his unparalleled, diverse experiences in industrial design, tackling such profound and elemental subjects as speed and motion, architecture, and the recording passage of time, and having begun his career as a sculptor, as did Georg Jenson, who else but Marc could bring to this domestic, modest and functional family of tea related objects the gravitas, the feeling of universality, the harmony of domesticity and ceremony?”
The tea service consists of five pieces: a coffee pot, teapot, sugar bowl, creamer, and tray each made from hand-hammered silver with handles made from responsibly-sourced mammoth tusks. The tray, coffee pot, and teapot also feature wrapped natural rattan accents, which contribute to the set’s organic, sculptural design. The coffee pot and teapot also each feature a subtle sliding door opening where water can be added. Each piece is stamped on the bottom with a signature “MN” makers mark to prove its authenticity. Only 10 sets of the tea service will be available for purchase, and they will each retail for £82,000.
The whole design process for the tea service, which consisted of its conceptual design, 3D printing, rapid prototyping, and several months of handcrafting done by Jensen’s silversmiths, took more than six months. Notably, the first set that was produced was reportedly hand-hammered over the course of three months by a third generation silversmith whose grandfather had worked with Georg Jensen, the founder and namesake of the Danish brand.
The rapid 3D prototyping, which Newson used in the development stage of the tea service’s design, was paramount to his work, as the 3D printed prototypes allowed him to easily and practically explore his design options in terms of shape, geometry, and technical possibilities.
The tea service was presented at Beijing Design Week 2015, which itself featured a strong focus on 3D printing’s potential in design. The silver set was part of a special exhibition put together in association with the Beijing Center for the Arts (BCA) and Georg Jensen. The tea service designed by Marc Newson was featured alongside other Georg Jensen pieces dating back over the past century, highlighting the brand’s timeless aesthetic.
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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