A blown-glass sphere resting on a base of concrete eroded by sea salt: the entire art of Draga & Aurel lies in this encounter, where fragility defies mass and where light seems to emanate from the material itself. From their studio in Como, designer Draga Obradovic and artist Aurel K. Basedow never force themselves to achieve a specific form: they allow it to emerge.
Their formula sounds like a manifesto: “We don’t design the form, we create the conditions for its emergence.” Everything in their work stems from this reversal. Pigmented resin, concrete, polished or oxidized metal, Murano glass are not tools at the service of a pre-existing design, but partners whose reactions are observed. The designer becomes a kind of orchestrator of phenomena: preparing the reaction, regulating the kiln temperature, applying the inclusions, then letting the material decide the rest. From these gestures, which guide the material without dictating its final form, an immediately identifiable style is born.
This method crystallized in 2019 when the duo presented "TransparencyMatters" at Milan Design Week, eleven entirely handmade pieces that elevate transparency to a principle—not an optical effect, but a clear and revealing attitude. Previously, Draga & Aurel had made a name for themselves by taking a then-rare path: the reuse of antique furniture. With "Deshabillé" (2007) and then "Heritage" (2009), they transformed found objects into narratives rather than simply restoring them. Their collaboration with the Italian company Baxter, which began in 2009 and continues to this day, cemented their place on the international stage. But it is resin, combined with concrete and metals, that has defined their identity: a material that is alternately limpid and opaque, capable of trapping light within its core.
In Milan this year, at Salone Raritas, the new limited-edition space within the Salone del Mobile, this approach reached a new level. With Affinity in Light , created in collaboration with the Venetian glassworks Salviati, founded in Murano in 1859, blown glass was, for the first time, on equal footing with resin. Between the kiln and the workshop, two temporalities resonate: the glass retains the memory of the fire and the master glassmakers' techniques, while the resin captures and then diffuses the light. The title says it all: this is not a collaboration in the usual sense, but rather a meeting of minds.
The "Soffio" lighting collection offers the clearest demonstration of this. The glass spheres, crafted using the ancient techniques of cotisso , pulegoso , and crackle , forgo perfection: they contain bubbles, crackle, and retain inclusions, and it is from these imperfections that their intensity arises. Light does not make them luminous; it seems to inhabit them, passing through the volume to reveal its texture. Placed on compact concrete eroded by sea salt, these fragile spheres contrast sharply with the mass of their base; the form emerges precisely from the interplay between expansion and containment, transparency and density, lightness and weight.
With "Crisalide," the approach becomes more subdued. Fused Murano glass plates are layered, producing fluid and ever-unpredictable chromatic transitions, where color ceases to be mere decoration and becomes the very structure of the piece. Suspended, in precarious balance, each composition seems to refuse to settle: light passes through it like a continuous trace, transforming it according to the time of day and the viewer's perception. It is the idea of a never-ending process, of a form endlessly renewed by the gaze.
The same dynamic permeates the resin pieces. The Stendhal console combines four volumes of translucent pink epoxy resin with two black concrete columns, smooth at the top, porous and raw at the bottom. The Lava table consists of a thick resin top that absorbs light and reflects it with depth, resting on a conical base eroded by salt. As for the Rive Duo bench , it is made up of two stacked asymmetrical volumes where resin inclusions, embedded in the concrete, pierce the mass like so many captive lights. Everywhere, the same dichotomy: opaque and translucent, heavy and light, matter and that which flows through it.
This dialogue is finally answered by Salviati's modular elements, inherited from an intuition of the 1960s: starting from a single module, they fit together like pieces of a luminous puzzle to form chandeliers, wall lights, or partitions. Transparency becomes a constructive principle, allowing solids and voids to breathe. Beyond these editions, Draga & Aurel collaborate with several major Italian houses – Poltrona Frau, Visionnaire, Giorgetti, Gallotti&Radice, Wall&decò – while the independent work of Aurel K. Basedow continues to inform the design. This, undoubtedly, is the secret of their singularity: making each piece an experience of light, matter, and their metamorphoses.
