CGD

Jan Plecháč started working as Moser’s creative director in 2022, taking to the job with great humility and respect for the company tradition and for the material of glass which has been an immense source of inspiration for him these past years. He respects the traditional craft but also brings his own brand of enthusiasm for the work, his sensitive approach to innovation and original design. He found inspiration for the collections he designed for Moser in nature, and they immediately made a mark on this eminent Czech company’s history.

The first work to see the light of day was the blue, limited-edition Abyss vase. Plecháč created an artistic masterpiece which has become a contemporary icon for Moser. Much like free divers test the very limits of the possible, so did the glass masters at Moser, both at the smelter and in the cutting shop, accept his challenge to create an exceptional monument from twenty-five kilograms of glass based on his design. The final outcome takes our breath away, much like the endless ocean which inspired it. Its morphology is based on strictly cut edges which are however tempered with the counterpoint of a hand-blown, organic bubble inside the vase, breathing life into it, making it playful and accenting the physical and spiritual dimensions and tension between the world above and below the water line, the world within us and around us.

With the Harmonic vase collection, the designer plays with the subtle effect of color gradients which he applied from the inside and which harmonize with the pronounced lines made with the help of a cutting machine. Plecháč found inspiration in the changes of night and day and the precious, poetic experiences which they create: although they are ephemeral, they are still able to impact our soul with immense emotional intensity. While the opal pink vase evokes the rising sun at dawn, its smokey-green version represents dusk.

But Plecháč perhaps shows his poignant vibe for nature at its purest in the Soul of the Forest collection. The beauty and unique quality of these glass pieces is visible at first sight in their dynamic, delicate colors and light effects. It’s as if they were begging physical contact and the caress of their soft, meticulously hand-cut contours. Their unique optical and tactile complexity has the power to transport a person into a forest paradise, lets them meld with it. Despite their seemingly abstract aesthetics, closer inspection shows that the patterns on the vase are in fact imprints of particular details from the forest realm. The Pinea vases don the bark structure and the dark-green color of pine trees, while the designer found inspiration for the Conea vase in the perfect composition and purple-blue hue of Korean fir cones. And for the apricot-colored Fungi vase, he used a soft cut to create the aesthetic of mushroom spores. The Soul of the Forest collection is balanced by the Bark drinkware set and vase, inspired by the texture of tree bark, and is crowned by the Microcosmos vase, adorned by the uniquely cut image designed by Michal Bačák, which whispers to us of the fascinating system of nature and the wider cosmos.

Tereza Bruthansová

Luxurious and traditionally made, yet visually fresh. That is the continental Libra Bed designed by Jan Plecháč for Czech producer Johann Malle. The original design of the headrest makes it possible to place the bed against the wall or in open space. In the latter case, the headrest creates a sort of partition. With Libra, a piece of furniture becomes small-scale architecture – it is worth mentioning that Jan Plecháč graduated from the Studio of Architecture and Design at AAAD, Prague, thus combining both fields.

The rich upholstering of the bed is offset by the technicist legs and side tables with stone tops. By doing so Plecháč succeeded to meet the requirements of luxury sleeping while remaining faithful to his fresh style.

Plecháč made his way among top designers with his witty concepts. He is a bold experimenter, doesn’t complicate things unnecessarily, and presents nice products with lightness and charm, which enables him to address both Czech and international clients. In interviews, he doesn’t search for the complicated missions of a designer artist and is not afraid of self-irony; he confesses to being competitive, but his ego seems to be just fine. He seems to have come to a grown-up age last year. The past months were very challenging for Plecháč: after nine years he separated from his colleague Henry Willgus a has become the art director of Moser, a traditional huge glass maker company, which has been searching in vain for its identity for many years. It is obvious that Plecháč is very good at combining tradition and innovation. Johann Malle, originally a saddle and shoemaker workshop, was manufacturing his first mattresses at roughly the same time when Ludwig Moser was founding his glassworks. 

Tereza Kozlová