Lucia Massari
Barbini Specchi Veneziani
An Italian designer born in Venice, Lucia Massari earned a Master’s in Product Design from London’s Royal College of Art in 2009, where she studied under the watchful guidance of Martino Gamper and Jurgen Bey. She opened her own studio in 2010, dividing her time between Venice and London. In 2013, she officially moved her studio to Venice. Her multidisciplinary work often involves joint ventures with local artisans, and ranges from designing the product to installation and performance. She explores the physical presence of objects, drawing inspiration from our daily activities around them. Driven by a true passion for colour and traditional crafting techniques, she designs furnishings and ordinary objects that hover between the two and three-dimensional, with true passion for research and a joyful, personal and playful vision of her own.
Barbini Specchi Veneziani is a long-standing creative atelier which embraces a variety of functions. It was first founded on the island of Murano in 1927 by Nicolò Barbini. The company specialises in the art of glass engraving, and on producing and restoring antique and modern Venetian mirrors. It is the oldest business still operating today in Murano, and is the result of the merger of three well-known glassworks: Artigianato Artistico Veneziano, Guglielmo Barbini and Domus Vetri d'Arte, all exceptional firms that shared a sound family-based tradition. Nowadays it’s Vincenzo and Giovanni Barbini that are taking the family business forward, availing of unique knowledge handed down from father to sons, and a legacy of techniques and secrets that allows them to bring masterpieces of the art of glassmaking to life. They took part in Homo Faber 2022 with a monumental mirror they crafted; inspired by Japan, it proved to be a complex exercise in masterful skill and incredible creativity.