Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
London-based design studio Soft Baroque melds conventional household furniture and objects with conceptual art. Its experimental approach to design is evocative, fantastical and functional.
Soft Baroque was founded in 2013 by design duo Saša Štucin and Nicholas Gardner. Štucin studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design of the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in visual communications in 2011. Gardner earned a bachelor’s degree in furniture design in 2010 from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. Štucin and Gardner later met while attending London’s Royal College of Art. They both graduated in 2013, Štucin with a master’s degree in visual communications and Gardner with a master’s degree in design products.
In 2011, Štucin took part in a workshop under Milton Glaser at the School of Visual Arts in New York and, in 2013, he participated in a research project at the Sandberg Instituut’s Think Tank for Visual Strategies in Amsterdam. Gardner worked as an assistant in designer Jerszy Seymour’s studio in Berlin in 2012 and as an assistant in Max Lamb’s design studio in 2013.
Since partnering as Soft Baroque, Štucin and Gardner have garnered critical attention for their unconventional modern furniture and objets d’art. The studio’s first piece — designed in 2014 — was the Lenticularis mirror, an innovative cross between a mirror and a scent diffuser. Another notable early work was the cartoon-like Pearl Screw Shelf bookcase in 2017, which features broken walnut timber planks, engineered plastic shelves and freshwater pearl screws.
Other pieces, such as chairs, benches, the Puffy Brick Column stools, vases, tables and lighting, are designed to blur the lines between functionalism and art. As Gardner explained in an interview with PIN-UP Magazine, “With a lot of our objects, we try to form a strange equation.”
Soft Baroque’s unique designs have included commissions from the luxury fashion brand Balenciaga and Swedish design company HEM. The duo has exhibited their pieces at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Swiss Institute in New York City, galleries in Copenhagen and New York and in major international design fairs.
On 1stDibs, discover a range of Soft Baroque seating, case pieces and storage cabinets, decorative objects and more.
2010s British Post-Modern Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Nickel, Brass
2010s English Modern Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Brass
Mid-20th Century Swedish Mid-Century Modern Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Pottery, Ceramic
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Resin
1910s Japanese Chinese Export Vintage Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Porcelain
21st Century and Contemporary Chinese Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Brass
20th Century Dutch Scandinavian Modern Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Brass
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Resin
19th Century French Antique Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Porcelain, Plexiglass, Paint
1880s Chinese Chinese Export Antique Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Porcelain
1890s Japanese Meiji Antique Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Porcelain
Late 20th Century English Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Brass
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Post-Modern Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Resin, Plastic
19th Century Hollywood Regency Antique Soft Baroque Vases and Vessels
Brass
