At first glance, your "Bell Table" seems modern, but also Oriental. Was that intentional?

Sebastian Herkner: My designs always set out to offer a new view of things and to forge links to crafts settings and cultural contexts. The simple inversion of the materials of glass and metal compared to customary glass tables kindles a fascinating wealth of associations: the table's shape is reminiscent of a bell or the elegant lines of a blossom, the glass foot brings a bottle to mind, while the metal body on it can be associated with metal trays from the Orient.

How did you come up with the combination of glass and metal as materials?

Herkner: I set out to turn the usual way of seeing glass tables upside down: in the case of the "Bell Table", it is not simply a matter of a glass slab on a metal foot, but the foot is itself made of glass on which the metal body then lies. By dint of the glass foot, the table's appearance changes radically depending on the floor, and it interacts with its surroundings. It is a design to which I devoted a lot of passion and effort, and which presents a lot of what is important to me: it is honest as it is manufactured in an elaborate, traditional way. And it is a symbol of my fascination for the diversity of materials and combinations of them.