Playful, surprising, enchanted: this is the mood created by the lighting proposals of the artistic-artisanal brand Melogranoblu. Founded in 1997 in Bergamo by Massimo Crema and Ermanno Rocchi, both involved in the past in companies operating in the field of set design (the first for the creation of trade fair stands, the second for theatrical lighting), the company came about almost by chance, thanks to the passions of the two partners in relation to the decorative function of lamps. “Lamps are turned off, most of the time,” says Crema, CEO of Melogranoblu. “This is why we create them to be beautiful even when not in use.”
After gaining experience in the world of objects, the two ‘discovered’ borosilicate glass, a particular type of glass that can be heated for shaping multiple times. It was love at first sight. “Our glass pieces have the same function as the reflecting parts of chandeliers in the 1700s: they reflect light but are also decorative, apart from it. So in many of our creations the light source is positioned outside the artistic glass form,” Crema continues.
Berry, Hydra System by Melogranoblu
While the creation of each project happens in-house – “we can even spend an entire day having fun with lines, adding details, in a continuous creative flow, free and liberating” – the workmanship is assigned to the firm’s glassworks at Marostica, the workshop where they use a technique dating back to the early 1940s.
Galuchat by Melogranoblu
Perfume by Melogranoblu
Soap by Melogranoblu
In glassmaking the process begins with a borosilicate tube that is heated and shaped to obtain the desired form. The beauty of the objects is accompanied by maximum quality: the two partner-artists, in fact, not only do the design, but also personally oversee the production, relying on carefully selected and highly specialized artisans.
Borosilicate glass, however, is only available as a transparent material. “It was a bit like working in black and white,” Crema says. “On the other hand, the we didn’t like the possible coloring techniques. So we began to experiment with PVD treatments to obtain a metal finish on the glass.”
Alpha, Hydra System by Melogranoblu
The collections in the catalogue include: Perfume (pure forms, rigorous style, on the boundary between design and crafts), Galuchat (suspension and table lamp in blown glass with an irregular texture of the tanned skin of a shark or a ray, also known as ‘galuchat’), Hydra System (a modular system that permits complex compositions for residential or contract applications, with glass forms suspended by means of tubular links in colored metal). And the magical Soap, containing a sculpture of glass spheres that is revealed only when the light makes the externally reflecting glass become transparent. Creating a game of sublime, fascinating apparitions.
