In the Studio With William Couig of Furthurdesign
A closer look at our glassware by Bill Couig of furthurdesign.
If you have dined with us at Eleven Madison Park at any point in the last decade, you have almost certainly interacted with one of the beautiful hand-blown glass works of Bill Couig, founder of furthurdesign. We began collaborating with Couig over 10 years ago, and we loved his fluid, handmade aesthetic so much that we have continued to work with him since.
He has made many pieces for us over the years, but perhaps the most iconic of these are the bottles and glasses that we use for our water service and the spiral candle votives that illuminate our dining tables.
Originally from Connecticut, Couig first fell in love with the art of glass blowing while he and a friend were backpacking around the world after college in 1995. “We saw glass in a lot of different locations, from Thailand to Egypt,” he remembers. “And when we eventually made our way to Europe, we went to Venice and we were just captivated by it.”
When he returned to New York, he took a workshop at UrbanGlass, a nonprofit community glass blowing facility and education center in Brooklyn, and it only fueled his fascination with the medium. “Fast forward 25 years, and I’m still doing it,” he says.
Initially, Couig took a job at a glass studio in Hoboken, where he learned the basics of the trade. “I felt like I went back to school and learned a lot about glass making,” he says. When they closed their doors in 2001, he returned to UrbanGlass and began making his own work: a mix of sculptural, fine art creations and more functional, design-oriented pieces under the name furthurdesign.
Couig now makes custom designs for a select group of restaurants and retail stores around the country, as well as a colorful collection of personal works that you can find on his website. Recently, we asked him to make a special run of the EMP water service set and a custom cloche dome for Eleven Madison Home. Each is handmade by Couig at his space at UrbanGlass in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, using a variety of different glassmaking techniques.
The bottles are created using a blowpipe and then shaped carefully by hand using the pipe and the heat of the furnace. For the glasses, he uses a mold to create a sphere, and then reshapes it to create a smooth, circular opening and gently sloped edges. To create the spiral shape on the votives, he attaches the end of a molten strip of glass to the bottom of the water cup, and then twirls it around the edge to create a perfect spiral up to the rim.
Before completion, the bottom of each item for Eleven Madison Home is marked with our signature maple leaf using a brass stamp, and polished by fire with a hot torch. The result is simultaneously precise and artfully handmade, with each piece possessing its own unique characteristics.
Take home one of our collaborations with furthurdesign here.