“I don’t usually use crystals in my works. This was a new project for me and also an interesting challenge: I was interested in finding a way of integrating the crystal in a material that naturally absorbed it to make an organic whole”.
With respect to the most obvious use, in other words using it as a finish without crystals truly entering in contact with the material, the project for ‘SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS at Work’ drove Gschwendtner to seek instead a solution that went beyond simple surface application. “I was interested in creating a new material that resulted from the complete integration of two very different materials”, she describes. “I started by doing a lot of experiments in this direction to find the right combination between very different materials. I was interested in exploring the contrast with a very rough material, like concrete or metal, and putting it against the perfect quality of crystal”.
The technical development phase required working in close collaboration with Quinze & Milan, commissioned to participate in the production of this composite material and who succeeded in the impossible job, on one hand, of combining crystal with a resin that looks like cement and on the other mixing it with a silicon resin that makes it look like a mineral concretion, extraordinarily soft and yielding to the touch.
In looking at all the possible ways of bringing together the limpid nature of the crystal with the imperfection of the rough material Gschwendtner also developed in terms of choice of colour the right blend of opposites, mixing perfection and imperfection, geometry and material, polished and matt.