FOAM BOWL - SPONGE VASE - MARCEL WANDERS

The quality of porcelain is best reflected through its fine and thin character. By using moulds you hardly get this quality out of porcelain. Marcel Wanders developed a technique to produce porcelain objects without the use of plaster moulds. A natural sponge is taken and dipped under fluid porcelain clay, the clay impregnates the sponge and after drying the porcelain impregnated dry sponge is burned in a regular ceramic oven. The sponge totally disappears and the porcelain perfectly copies the fine shapes of the sponge. In this way we create a product which is industrially reproducible but different every time and which has the ability to show the best porcelain has in it. The same process is developed further on to make products by using pre-shaped artificial foam and make porcelain objects out of these, the foam bowl is a first example of the great possibilities with this technique.
This vase is developed in a project for Droog Design and Rosenthal.

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