Press release

Made by hand, made to be kept

Since 2012, Utopia & Utility has made objects designed to stay, and asks why we keep buying things that were never meant to.

Most of what we buy is made to be replaced. Utopia & Utility, founded by designer Pia Wüstenberg in 2012, makes the opposite. Each vessel is assembled from parts made by hand in independent European workshops: glass blown by mouth in Bohemia, wood turned in Finland, metal spun in Britain, ceramics from Italy and Germany. Every piece passes through several pairs of hands before it reaches the studio in Schleswig Holstein.

Things last when people care for them. A vessel of mouth blown glass and hand turned wood is chosen the way one chooses gold: for its material, for the hands that made it, for the story it carries. Nobody throws it away. It is kept, cared for and handed on. That attachment is the studio's answer to throwaway consumption.

"I want to make fewer things that matter more. When something is made by hand from a material that lasts, you don't discard it. You look after it, and one day you give it to someone you love." Pia Wüstenberg, founder and creative director

Utopia & Utility grew from Pia Wüstenberg's Royal College of Art graduation project, a stacking vessel in glass, wood and ceramic. It is carried by more than 80 stockists worldwide, including Finnish Design Shop and Cassina IXC Tokyo.
Contact: pia@utopiaandutility.eu