Riddle 1
Your tip:
What you see is not what you get: Designs that amaze
10.9.2025
Translation: machine translated
Pictures: Pia Seidel
Play, fun, excitement - design: some designs amaze us with materials that are different than they appear at first glance - like a surprise egg for adults.
Under this year's Zurich Design Weeks motto «Team Up», Robert Wettstein's studio, together with Craft-ID and other creative minds, presented the group exhibition «In Guter Gesellschaft». This is where craftsmanship and creative freedom meet - with experimental lights and objects that pose puzzles.
Today I present two pieces that fit perfectly into the category design-over-eggs. At first glance, they look familiar. But their materials are surprising.
Play along
What material do you think the two objects in the photos are made of? Leave your guess before you read on! You'll get the answer right after.
1. birdpool
The first object is a bowl called «Birdpool». Its look is characterised by a mixture of rough, white and smooth, coloured areas.
2nd Elb
The second object is a ceiling light with a softly shimmering surface. But what is really behind it?
Riddle 2
Your tip:
Resolution: What is what?
1. birdpool
The bowl looks like polystyrene but is made of ceramic. Designer Natascha Madeiski has recreated the structure and lightness of polystyrene in clay for her teamwork with Robert Wettstein, creating an impressive design.
2nd Elb
This lamp holder is actually made of polystyrene. A special glazing technique gives it the deceptively real look of ceramic. The same principle was also used to create vases, a console and cooler as well as another lamp.
A good example of how design playfully challenges our senses and reinterprets materials in a fascinating way.
Have you guessed the materials? Or did these objects fool you - in the best possible way - just like they fooled me?
Pia Seidel
Senior Editor
Pia.Seidel@digitecgalaxus.chLike a cheerleader, I love celebrating good design and bringing you closer to everything furniture- and interior design- related. I regularly curate simple yet sophisticated interior ideas, report on trends and interview creative minds about their work.
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