![]() ![]() ![]() “I like forms that don’t come out of the author’s imagination but that take cues from chemistry and physics and mechanics of the immaterial,” says Arbel, who is very aware of the risk of nostalgia inherent in an approach that privileges a romanticization of the classic artisan’s connection with the material. This difference in place, between the cities of the Middle East and the deep woods of Canada, represents a certain alchemical shift in lived environment and a breadth of cultural exposure. The result is a vase the process makes the copper seemed aged, recalling relics of the Bronze Age, perhaps similar to those found somewhere like Jerusalem, where Arbel was born, a place where metalworking and glass-blowing have existed for millennia. One recent experimental art piece, Project 113, features copper alloy poured directly into heated glass, which then shatters, leaving the cooled, formed metal in a vessel-like form that undulates plummeting liquid. The latest work by Omer Arbel, best known as the creative director of Bocci, stretches beyond lighting design and into conceptual architecture and object design. Arbel wants to move past just guiding materials toward a preset goal he wants to follow them into the furthest reaches of their potential and into aesthetic landscapes of forms not yet known. In the last few years, his experimentation with his team, both at Bocci and under his personal design umbrella OAO Works, has been crossing boundaries, eschewing the clean computer-generated lines of parametric design to get to the heart of the ways humans interact with tools and natural processes to create homes and art. We remain outliers aesthetically, yet somehow we’re thriving.” He knocks on wood the knock has a deeper, metaphorical resonance with Arbel’s commitment to material-to the way it acts under pressure, and the gifts and surprises it bears, as it shifts and bends, as it flows with a mind of its own. “There’s absolutely no concession to the marketplace or to research. Arbel’s glass pendant lights, suspended in chandelier fashion by coaxial cables, gained immense popularity more than that, they became iconic, and now the design is one of the most recognizable pieces of manufacturing in Vancouver, and maybe the whole of Canada.Īrbel is not concerned with trends, and his recent work has stretched beyond lighting design into conceptual architecture and object design. ![]() By merging a functional need for lighting with Arbel’s intense glass aesthetic, the company easily broke through the noise. Arbel’s now–business partner, Randy Bishop, took an interest in the glass-blowing work he was doing, and in 2005, Bocci was born. While maintaining his day job, Arbel experimented with his creative output, tackling projects. But Arbel would rather show than tell, and soon we are on the move, walking past craft breweries and boarded-up shops toward Bocci, his lighting design studio, in Railtown.Īfter graduation from architecture school at the University of Waterloo, Arbel apprenticed with architects Enric Miralles in Barcelona and John and Patricia Patkau of Vancouver’s Patkau Architects. ![]() His mind is fast and fluid, not unlike the fabrication processes that have catapulted the designer into the international spotlight. As the caffeine from the coffee he’s enjoying takes hold, Arbel talks about the groupings of concepts that drive his work. The 45-year-old multidisciplinary artist and designer, best known as the creative director of Bocci, is sitting outside at a small table, dressed in black. I first meet Omer Arbel at a coffee shop on East Hastings Street in Vancouver. Omer Arbel’s Molecular Aesthetic How the Vancouver-based designer maintains his commitment to experimentation on top of ongoing commercial success. ![]()
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