Vienna Design Week 2013: Passionswege – Hilda Hellström @ E. Fessler Kamine

As we arrived in Vienna the first thing we noticed was our breath. It’s autumn in Vienna. And we still haven’t found our winter accommodation.

When we do an object such as “Heat x Heart” may be just the thing to complete our winter retreat.

Created by the Swedish born, London based designer Hilda Hellström in cooperation with E. Fessler Kamine, a Vienesse firm who have been involved with the production of heating ovens and oven tiles for over 200 years and whose products can be found, for example, in the Wiener Hofburg and Schloss Schönbrunn, “Heat x Heart” combines the warmth of a traditional tiled stove with the soul of northern heathen tradition in an object with a meditative, interactive element just as calming and contemplative as the act of watching a fire burn.

Atop the oven a network of channels has been formed from clay tiles, a network of channels which contain melted tin. In the tin float aluminium balls that can be moved/played with/toyed with via ceramic “pokers”.

If we’re honest that aluminium balls were, for us, a little too much, too playie and we can well imagine such an object working perfectly well without the balls, and potentially with an alternative material in the channels. Possibly coloured?

All in all just a nicely packaged, self-contained, self explanatory project that does nothing more revolutionary than provide a new perspective on an old handicraft.

Just as a good Passionswege project should…..