artistic awarded design editors-choice vase

Delta Vase by Mart van Schijndel

Delta Vase by Mart van Schijndel
Reviewed by

The vase Delta is the best known example of Schijndel’s preference for the triangular shape. This design from 1981 is now a Dutch Design Classic.

Unlike any other glass vases from blown glass, this vase is composed of three rectangular glass plates which are bonded with silicone sealant. Of each plate a corner is cut off.

The minimalist simplicity of the extremely copied Delta Vase brought Van Schijndel international recognition. In 1984 the Delta vase won the ‘5th Arango International Design Contest, Glass that Works’ in Miami.

The Delta vase has received numerous international awards and can be found in world renowed museum collections such as the MoMA in New York, the Neue Sammlung in München and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Each vase is engraved with a signature of the designer. This would give the impression that Van Schijndel sees the vase as an art object. The opposite is true: for him the vase was a flower carrier that when not used as such should be stored in the closet.

The signing had a purely pragmatic reason. It had to provide protection against counterfeiting. This turned out not to be really effective; Van Schijndel spent a lot on lawyers to stop the makers of copies.

The form principle of the Delta vase is closely related to an earlier lamp design by Van Schijndel named the Slack. However after the assembly of the vase the obtuse angles vorm on the outside, because two sheets of glass are glued with each other, while with the lamp the corners are no connection of two parts but folded steel.

Author Mienke Simon Thomas States in her book ‘Good in shape: one hundred years design in Netherlands’: ‘The architect Mart van Schijndel was, without being consciously looking for it, one of the most successful self-producing designers. In 1981 he showed for the first time, as a one-time form experiment, his from three rectangular pieces of glass composited Delta vase in the Gallery of Hans Appenzeller in Amsterdam. Currently thousands of Delta vases have been sold.’

Learn more

About the author

Alex

Leave a Comment