PRESERVATION OF BOHEMIAN

GLASSBLOWING TRADITION

Brokis is the brainchild of successful Czech

entrepreneur Jan Rabell. In 2006, he founded the

brand Brokis as a platform to enliven and elevate

Bohemian glassmaking to new heights and preserve

generations of knowledge and craftsmanship.

Nearly ten years prior, in 1997, he acquired the ailing

Janštejn Glassworks, founded at the start of the 19th

century approximately 140 kilometres southeast of

Prague. Demand for traditional products had declined

significantly, many of the glassmakers were growing

old and leaving, and time-honoured technologies

and techniques were at risk of being lost. Mr. Rabell’s

vision was to restore the factory to its former prestige

and ensure that the ages-old Bohemian glassmaking

tradition endured into the 21st century.

With Brokis, Jan Rabell created a lighting brand

offering entirely different products than those

previously produced at Janštejn Glassworks. Several

new Italian-style furnaces were built, and production

techniques were refined. Some, such as grinding and

glass painting, were discontinued, and others were

revived, e.g., glassblowing using optic moulds, and

traditional hotshop techniques. Original and nearly

forgotten formulas for manufacturing coloured glass

were reinstated and are now characteristic of the

Brokis brand.

Brokis has firmly established itself as a leading

innovator in glass lighting. For example, the complex

technology applied in production of the Night Birds

collection, which consists of imposing yet elegant

curved glass silhouettes of birds in various phases

of flight, required two years of experimentation to

perfect. Today, Brokis and Janštejn Glassworks employ

a total of 100 people and enjoy a unique symbiosis

that has allowed Brokis to launch sales operations

in 70 countries and showcase its renowned lighting

collections at the world’s top design exhibitions.

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