Monoblokk is a minimalist vase designed by Oslo-based studio Anderssen & Voll for Nedre Foss. Nedre Foss asked Swedish art director, graphic and floral designer Moa Nordahl to explore the possibilities of function and beauty in a radically different vase format. Making a symmetrical shape in blown glass is an exercise already done by thousands of craftspeople for literally thousands of years. From a designer’s point of view it’s a bit like designing a stackable chair in plywood and steel tube; it feels hard to be original and you quickly run into the limitations of the material. That’s why leaving the axial symmetry of blown glass behind and deciding on press glass as a manufacturing technique was really liberating to this process. Press glass gave us a certain freedom to review the function of a vase. The soft inner void in contrast to the sharp and rectangular outer shape of the corpus can only be done by pressing the liquid glass into a mold. We have kept the mold seams as well as other irregularities left by the mold as lasting imprints from the manufacturing technique. The inspiration were gathered from glass panels, aquariums and concrete road dividers. Monoblokk is a 3D-object approaching a stricter two dimensional format. To us this makes for interesting relationships to other table top «dwellers» like candlesticks, jugs, bowls and even other flower vases – creating a backdrop or a frame for surrounding objects. The stretched and narrow footprint of Monoblokk encourages you to arrange your flowers, twigs, branches or foliage differently than you would in a vase shaped in a more conventional way. The formal similarity to a water tank or a terrarium works well with water grown plants or cuttings, turning the root systems into the attraction.

Photography by Marcus Nyberg / Moa Nordahl