Prague, Czech Republic

Bořek Šípek, Czech architect and designer and winner of many Good Design Awards, best known for his flamboyant glassware and furniture, died in Prague in 2016 at age 66.

Sípek became a prominent figure in glassmaking both in this country and abroad; and at the age of nineteen, he emigrated to Germany in 1968 after the Soviet invasion of then Czechoslovakia where he made a breakthrough as a designer in the 1980s.

He was renowned and celebrated for his individual, unusual, colorful, and rich style. 

He experimented with unexpected and often opulent shapes that made him the most prominent figure in glassmaking both in his country and abroad. 

By the mid-eighties, he had caught the eye of the Italian design brand Driade, and Šípek began designing furniture, cutlery, glass vases, lamps, and other home accessories for the company. 

Later, he also became the architect of Prague Castle under the presidency of Václav Havel, and the designer of Havel’s Place.

“Šípek, states Christian Narkiewicz-Laine, President of The Chicago Athenaeum, “is one of the most brilliant global design stars who played a pivotal role in saving the Czech hand-made glass industry.”

“His glass exhibitions at the Salone del Mobile in Milan during the early 1990s remain profoundly provocative and gave tremendous rise to the new Baroque design and architecture in the following decades.”

“I remember at one of the notorious Driade gallery openings, 20 of his large, most stunning Baroque vases were being venerated by attendees when suddenly, out of nowhere, huge fans were deliberately turned on and all his is fragile, extravagant work came crashing to the ground, shattering into pieces to the shock and dismay of everyone there.”

He was associated with the colorful “neo-baroque” glasswork and sculptural furniture he created, particularly for Italian brand Driade, which has described him as an outstanding presence and his work as highly sensual with origins clearly rooted in Bohemian baroque.

Šípek was born in Prague in 1949. Orphaned at age 15, his guardian was René Roubíček (b. 1922), the great glass artist. He studied furniture construction in Prague before emigrating to Germany after the Soviet-led invasion of his homeland in 1968. In Germany, he worked as a cabinet maker and later studied architecture in Stuttgart.

He started to work in glass at a smaller and more expressive scale, moving to Amsterdam and attracting the attention of Driade, where he became one of the brand’s core designers alongside Philippe Starck (b. 1949), Oscar Tusquets (b.1941), and Antonia Astori (b.1940).

He also designed works for companies such as Alessi, Cleto Munari, Maletti, Sawaya & Moroni, Vitra, Scarabus, Wittmann, Swarovski, Leitner, Quartet, Sèvres, Saint-Gobain, and Rosenthal. 

His pieces are highly sensual and sculptural. 

Notable designs include the Bambi Chair (1983), Jansky Chair (1986), the rattan Liba Chair (1988), Maletius Chair (1992), the Paris boutique of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld (1995), various lighting fixtures for the Skoda stand at Volfsburg’s World EXPO (2000), Olga Vase (2001), and a chandelier for the Beograd Opera House (2005).

In 1997, his Apollo Bowl for Swarovski won a Good Design Award.

In the late 1980s, together with master glassblower Petr Novotný (b. 1947), he also cofounded the Ajeto glass factory in the Czech Republic to keep alive the traditions of Bohemian glassblowing.

“For me he is not only an important person in Czech design, but a global postmodern star who brought, along with Philippe Starck, another type of personal approach with a very special accent on craft and story,” states Narkiewicz-Laine.

“He is a symbol of creativity where the best craftsmen would create the most complicated and challenging pieces of the time.”