Housengama & Christian Haas
Christian Haas’s work has always been influenced by Japanese culture and aesthetics. For this collection, Haas has been especially inspired by the Japanese trait of combining simplicity & complexity in product design. The series began with a comparative study of the Asian and European ways of setting a table and determining objects with shapes and sizes that would work for both. The resulting collection of plates, bowls and vessels all work in a multifunctional way. Haas determined that the collection be humble and accessible, for the everyday, and that its beauty is found in the subtlety of unexpected geometries.
Haas’s collection has an additional decorative element: On the underside of each piece is a debossed ‘coded’ symbol. This hidden detail is for the pleasure of the owner, a quiet and unique form of decoration. Haas worked together with Housen pottery to revolutionise traditional porcelain production techniques. One important focus was the stand or foot. Housen developed a technique that did away with this normally necessary feature. Instead the rounded forms of Haas’s plates and vessels flow into soft sculptural points that the element stands on.
