Bower Studios’ New Melting Mirror Collection Reflects the Surrealness of the Pandemic
A new collection of mirrors from Bower Studios slumps and curves in a visual “exploration of reality vs. perception.”
Four mirrors, all flowing in different directions around wooden dowels, make up the new “Melt” collection. Bower Studios founders Danny Giannella, Tammer Hijazi, and Jeffrey Renz aim to tell a brain-bending story of transformation with their unorthodox-looking pieces.
“We like to examine visual cues that most of us innately understand but may never be conscious of,” Giannella said in a Dezeen interview. “If something droops around something in a certain way, we automatically perceive it to be soft. By using a material that is clearly not soft, we flip the laws of physics on their head and bring these inherent visual cues to light.”
All the mirrors are CNC-machine-cut in-house before being mounted to wood substrate in either deep walnut or light oak. Every backboard has at least one protruding wooden peg that visually supports the sliding glass. “It looks like the mirrors would slide down and flop to the floor like wet noodles without the dowel,” says Hijazi. “All the pieces in our Melt collection have a grounding element – a rigid component that allows the other, melty component to express itself.”
The first looking glass forms a candy-cane-like shape, its long body slumping over a centered peg. A second rolls over a wooden circle before pooling down to the floor. The third piece resembles a curtain draped across two rods, while the fourth resembles something like a string of pasta hung to dry on an asymmetrical frame.
The Melt range also includes several pieces of furniture. Benches, chairs, and end tables all incorporate elements that seem to ooze over their surfaces. The website even features a digital rendering of the mirrors and furniture melting into their current forms as the heat of the sun moves across them. “The creamy upholstered seat cushions, the travertine table tops, the glass mirrors, [are] all drooping down as if experiencing some force of nature, some oppressive heat or laziness perhaps that exists in a dimension of their own,” the designers explain.
Looking at all the sagging glass in this collection, it’s easy to see how the 2020 coronavirus pandemic may have influenced its design. Placing their reflective creations in a fictitious digital background of overgrown stone ruins created by Alexis Christodoulou, Bower Studios wanted to provide a “surreal manifestation of the past few months” of the COVID pandemic experience. The untamed setting hints at the “ruin of a past life.” Funny enough, the rounded, flowing mirrors are some of the only things that add a sense of playful peace to the scene.
“We wanted this collection to exude extreme tranquility and relaxation, hoping it would be somewhat contagious to the rest of us who could probably loosen up a bit these days,” notes Renz.
New York-based Bower Studios was founded in 2013 by Giannella and Hijazi, both of whom were joined by Renz on the business side the following year. They create all types of furniture, lighting, and accessories, but mirrors are their specialty. “Of all the things we surround ourselves with every day, the mirror is most closely related to our consciousness — a humble technology for understanding ourselves,” the website says.
Offered in clear, peach, bronze, and black, the Melt collection is currently available to pre-order, with pieces priced between $1,700 and $4,300 and an expected ship date of March 2021.
