Miranda van der Waal’s glassblowing genes can be traced back four generations. As a child, she was already experimenting with glass in her mother’s workshop. "Glassblowing was in my blood, so I never made a conscious choice to become a glassblower, it was simply my destiny." Apprenticed at Van Bruggen, an established glass instrument maker, Miranda honed her skills further, learning the essential techniques of mouth blowing and hand drawing glass. Her specialist skills have led her to undertake various commissions, among them three chandeliers for the Rijksmuseum. Above all, her relationship with glass is special because of what molten glass allows her to do, to conjure her own creations as a glass artist.

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Take part in one of Miranda van der Waal’s glassblowing workshops and make your own vase, bauble, wineglass or pendant lamp. There are separate workshops for each object, promising a unique experience, as you work directly with melting glass. First, you will paint the glass by using ground up glass. The next step is to blow the glass into the object of your choosing, and Miranda will help with this technical phase of the process.  At the end of the session, you will go home with a glass creation that you crafted yourself.

Glassblowing workshop in Rotterdam

Blow your own vase, Christmas bauble, wineglass or pendant lamp.

Learn to shape melting glass

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This sculptural glass vessel was hand shaped from a combination of hollow glass and massive glass. Miranda van der Waal uses lampworking techniques to pull and form glass heated to a malleable state with a blow torch.

Pumpkin bottle

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This sculptural carafe with an elaborate and delicate handle has been hand shaped using a blowtorch from hollow glass. The blue body of the carafe contrasts with the lighter delicate intertwining forms that make the spout and the handle.

Bird carafe

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This sculptural glass piece, inspired by the sinuous and colourful form of a flower or dandelion, has been handcrafted from different colours of rod glass, hand worked using various techniques of lamp work.

Fluff ball

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This sculptural glass installation has been crafted from a combination of hollow glass and solid glass. The glass pieces were lampworked, adding smaller glass details onto a central blown glass sphere.

King’s vase

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This sculptural piece of glass has been hand shaped from hollow glass canes, heated with a blowtorch lamp and worked with various tools to pinch and pull the glass.

Green tree

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Geir Nustad was born in Tromsø, in the north of Norway, in 1984. In 2006 he moved to Sweden, where he trained to become a glassblower at the Kosta Glascenter, one of Europe’s most renowned glass schools. He then moved to the Netherlands for further study at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Geir has also worked alongside different skilled masters to improve his skills. Currently living and working in Amsterdam, his practice as an artist ranges from drawings and paintings to objects, sculptures and installations that consist mainly of glass, either as a sculptural medium or related to design/applied-arts.

Nustad, Geir

Spellbound by the magic of glass

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Marco Lopulalan’s journey into glassmaking began with Royal Leerdam Crystal, learning the glassblowing craft according to the Leerdam School, taught by master blower Arie van Lopik. Up until 2019, Royal Leerdam Crystal was producing glass for the Dutch Royal Family. The designer Copier was the most popular at Leerdam, and to this day, Marco is the only glassblower who can reproduce Copier’s collection of work. He sees himself as a ’functional artist’ making objects he can reproduce. The secret to Marco’s success, according to him, lies in his ability to stay close to himself, staying open to sharing his knowledge and letting people into his beautiful world of glass. What he loves most about his craft is the glass itself, what it does and how it can be controlled.

Lopulalan, Marco

Vibrant glassware

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Whilst at art college in Farnham, England, Bibi Smit observed some students from the glass department holding glass blowing pipes, the hot molten glass glowing and dancing. She was mesmerised, a moment of revelation, that glass could be used as a medium for art. Three master glassblowers helped her to hone her glassmaking skills: David Kaplan in Scotland, Willem Heesen in the Netherlands and Boyd Sugiki in the US. Using free-blowing techniques often combined with cold glass techniques, her inspiration comes from observing natural phenomena such as murmurations (swarms of sparrows) and the ever-changing shapes of clouds. Her glass art encompasses elaborate installations of swarms of birds in flight, intertwining cloud shaped vessels and sculptures.

Smit, Bibi

Reflections of nature

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Bernard Heesen’s glass making career was not something he initially planned, having chosen architecture as his major. He was side-tracked by glass making when helping out in his father’s glass studio back in the late 70s. Here, a fascination with molten glass eventually lured him into becoming a glass artist himself. Marking this momentous U-turn in his life, he climbed Mount Etna, where his free, maker’s spirit came to the fore when trying to blow bubbles from the hot lava. He continues to explore by investigating the possibilities that glassblowing conjures without the ballast of glass making traditions and their techniques. His oeuvre is ornamental and quirky – everyday objects such as wine decanters wrought into decorative surrealism.

Heesen, Bernard

Rebel with an artistic cause

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Your authorizations

Developed in partnership with Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte and made possible by the support of Cartier, Homo Faber in Città gives you a rare chance to visit over 70 artisan workshops. The project is developed in collaboration with Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Confartigianato Imprese Venezia, CNA Venezia, Consorzio Promovetro Murano, The Venice Glass Week and Venezia da Vivere.

Our Partners

Step inside the workshops and ateliers to learn the secrets of local master artisans and manufacturers

Try your hand at different crafts with an authentic experience

Marvel at examples of fine craftsmanship by doing our itineraries

This september, the second edition of Homo Faber in Città invites visitors to step off the beaten track and discover the artisanal addresses where Venetian craftspeople create objects of exquisite beauty. A rare opportunity to witness Venice’s master artisans and young talents demonstrating their crafts and presenting the tools, materials and skills involved in contemporary Venetian craftsmanship.

Enrich your experience beyond Homo Faber 2024: The Journey of Life

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Homo Faber Guide is an online portal dedicated to contemporary craftsmanship, showcasing artisans, ateliers, museums, galleries, shops and experiences. Create your user account for access to exclusive features on Homo Faber Guide: save your preferred pages, hear about hot topics first, leave recommendations for your favourite artisans and much more.

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Although the Michelangelo Foundation researches the talents for its projects autonomously, collaboration with our ambassadors is fundamental. Over 120 associations, schools and institutions allow us to map the continents for craftsmanship and to have partners in each country who share our vision and goals. In addition, we have asked well-known personalities in the craft, design and art world to be our ambassadors in the cities where they live, so that their recommendations can offer a unique insight into craftsmanship in the major cities of Europe and beyond.

Who are our ambassadors?

Download our free Homo Faber Guide app (iOS and Android) to discover artisans, museums, galleries, shops, and experiences by location. Search Homo Faber on the App store on your mobile device.

Find craftsmanship destinations on the go

Discover the addresses of esteemed manufacturers, well known for producing high quality objects across a wide variety of crafts. Read their stories and find out where you can shop their contemporary pieces, see their archive collections and even in some cases visit their workshops. Find exceptional ateliers where artisans collaborate creatively to create fine pieces of craftsmanship. Reach out to them to commission something special.

Ateliers & Manufacturers

All the artisans and small workshops featured in Homo Faber Guide have been carefully researched and selected. They are presented and narrated through a selection of images and an interview, which allows readers to immerse themselves in the universe of these makers who exemplify excellence in their individual fields or are promising talents of the future. Find masters and rising stars who share the same passion and determination, and whose workshops are ready to share their secrets with visitors.

A selection of the best artisans

Are you eager to discover a city through craftsmanship? Do you wish to spend a few hours visiting an applied arts museum or attending a course on a craft with one of the masters featured in Homo Faber Guide? Browse the section dedicated to experiences and find your next adventure.

Experiences

An expert artisan is an accomplished artisan who has been in activity for more than ten years. He or she may also be engaged in passing on their knowledge to the next generations, but they have been doing so for less than seven years. Beyond this, they will become a Master artisan.

Who is an Expert artisan?

Homo Faber Guide provides you with a selection of the best addresses across Europe and further afield, where you will be able to discover and purchase exceptional objects, some of which are created by artisans featured in Homo Faber Guide.

Galleries

Homo Faber Guide is an online platform dedicated to craftsmanship that allows you to discover artisans and their masterpieces; explore museums, visit galleries and shops selling unique objects; enjoy experiences in cities across Europe and beyond.

Homo Faber Guide is a signature project developed by the Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship, an international non-profit organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, which was set up in 2016 thanks to the intuition of Franco Cologni and Johann Rupert. The Michelangelo Foundation’s mission is to celebrate and preserve master craftsmanship, and for this reason it has created a map of the most significant representatives in this field, with the aim of connecting all its protagonists: artisans, designers, gallery owners, art curators, collectors and enthusiasts of high-quality handmade pieces.

About the Guide

Are you an artisan, atelier or manufacturer? Would you like to be featured in Homo Faber Guide? The Michelangelo Foundation encourages self-assessment initiatives and is pleased to evaluate new members to appear on the Guide or in other projects. Thanks to the Master’s Touch Evaluation Tool, every artisan can send their application: register and access a questionnaire to see if you fulfill the 11 criteria for excellence that stand behind all the activities of the Michelangelo Foundation. If your answers reach the minimum requirement, your application will be brought to our attention; if, on the contrary, you should score below the minimum requirement, we will give you some points for improvement, in the hope that you may participate in future initiatives of the Michelangelo Foundation.

Join the Homo Faber Guide!

Our artisan labels

A master artisan is an accomplished artisan who has been in activity for more than ten years, and who has also been engaged in passing on his or her expertise to the younger generations for more than seven years. This is in keeping with one of the key values of the Michelangelo Foundation: the transmission of knowledge in craftsmanship.

Who is a Master artisan?

Find museums handpicked for their links to contemporary craftsmanship and the exquisite collections they have on display. In each city, discover a museum of interest and organise your visit. From Italian museums displaying coral collections, glass pieces and ceramics to decorative art museums in Russia and Greece, marvel at the variety of museums exhibiting masterpieces, showcasing techniques and recounting histories.

Museums

A rising star is an artisan who has been active for less than ten years, and who is capable of expressing his or her craft with competence, creativity and originality. Whether self-taught or trained, the rising star represents the future of craftsmanship, in creativity, concerns and approaches.

Who is a Rising star?

The artisans featured in Homo Faber Guide have been selected through a meticulous assessment process based on the 11 criteria for excellence, identified by Alberto Cavalli, Executive Director of the Michelangelo Foundation, in the volume The Master’s Touch, written with researchers Giuditta Comerci and Giovanna Marchello. The members of the Michelangelo Foundation’s network who have been invited to participate in sourcing artisans for the Guide use an evaluation tool based on these criteria. In this way, they can identify the most suitable artisans to include in the project.

Simple rules for a transparent selection

In which city does the artisan work?

In which country does the artisan practise?

What craft does the artisan practise?

What is the artisan’s Instagram page?

What is the name of the artisan you are recommending?

Does the artisan have a website?

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