“ For me as an engineer , it ’ s natural to put the material first . For me , form always comes second . I think that I can sing the praises of glass better if I get to frame it with other materials – but glass is always the star . It ’ s interesting to cross blown glass with sturdy materials , where we can control every dimension down to the tenth of a millimeter .”
Mattias Stenberg
Mattias Stenberg is the architect , engineer , researcher and product designer who found a material in glass that forced him to ease his high demand for control and precision , in order to create more freely .
“ Glass was the first medium that got me to explore and let go of the need for safety , to create a feeling , a sensation ,” says Mattias . “ When I make a piece of furniture , I can control everything down to the smallest detail , through long production processes and tests . With glass , you can only control maybe 70 %. The crucial step lasts five seconds , and then it has to sit there . For me , that was liberating . I ’ m not a storyteller ; I never will be . But glass got me to want to sing the material ’ s praises in something that , for the first time , I dared to call artistic expression .”
Mattias Stenberg grew up in Umeå , surrounded by nature , “ with people who fish , pick cloudberries and hunt moose ,” as he says . He moved to Stockholm where he studied to be an architect and an engineer at the Royal Institute of Technology , where he was also a researcher before founding his studio in 2010 . The legacy of Norrland has a tangible presence in his design .
“ I ’ ve lived in Stockholm for a long time now , but while you may be able to take the boy to the city , you can never take Norrland out of the boy . Orange lava against a gray cliff – those things stay with you . I like to say that I am Sarek meets Moroso – that I exist at that intersection .”
Mattias Stenberg encountered glass early on – at the age of eight , while on a trip with his family to the Kingdom of Crystal in Småland , which made a big impression . Perhaps this memory played a role in 2013 , when Mattias was hired by Kosta Boda to try working as a glass designer for the first time . He immediately felt at home among the master glassblowers and the other craftspeople in the studio – an environment that may seem intimidating to many artists and designers .
“ There are different loves , but a great deal comes from intuition . I have that relationship with glass . As an engineer , sometimes you think you have an intuitive feel for a material , beyond temperatures and technical properties . I am convinced that glass and I have that relationship . When I came to Kosta , I was so cavalier that I immediately dared to challenge what you expect from glass , from the very beginning .”
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