Eunjae Lee designed this tea set while studying at the HDK School of Design and Crafts in Gothenburg, Sweden and first presented it at the Formex 2012 design fair in Stockholm. A white version is currently on show in Design: Another Language at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, Korea (June 17, 2013 – February 23, 2014).
Silent Machine is a collection of stark cylinders made from dark, matte stoneware that are complimented by stainless steel fasteners that resemble screw threads, nuts, bolts and washers. The forms have the precision necessary for machinery parts and have dispensed with ornamentation. In the follow-up version, Lee used porcelain to lighten the sense of weight and mass and brass instead of stainless steel to warm the overall look.
Industrial materials and processes have always fascinated Lee. Silent Machine is her attempt to commemorate nostalgia for the Industrial Age through the methodology of design. “Machines in that period”, Lee says,” were the fast lane to a new world awash with ambition and innovation…machines at that time produced fertile ground for revolutionary movements in modern design and created new concepts of beauty.” Overtime, these machines became relics of the Industrial Age but they are honored in the tea set, Silent Machine.
Above image: Eunjae Lee’s tea set, Silent Machine from 2013. Stoneware and stainless steel.
Original Prototypes for Silent Machine
Eunjae Lee’s Silent Machine #02 Assembly; Disassembly, 2013. Porcelain and brass.
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