The parts are connected by a precious metal component (titanium) that lets the sand (aluminium oxide, a hard, dark mineral, almost like diamond, used to cut and polish glass) pass through. The apparently simple design could not have been possible with this major studio and a complex engineering process applied to the cast-iron mould required for the outer volume.

The precise final form with its sharp edges and planes curved by the torsion requires a metal mould described in Murano vocabulary as being a fermo, one of the most fascinating glass processes.

This work contains the sense of passing time but also of interchangeability between top and bottom because the hourglass works by being turned upside down again and again.


The desire to make fine metals an integral part of this project is a reference to the noble clock-making profession. The metal forms the support and structural part of the compositions designed by Tadao Ando for Venini.