The cheerful world of Anna von Lipa

A Danish designer and her team of Bohemian artisans add some cheer and Mediterranean flair to glasses and carafes.

Anna von Lipa doesn’t exist. At least, there’s no birth certificate for a person called Anna von Lipa. In reality, however, the person that the Danish-Bohemian glass design company took its name from is far from fictional. Anna is the daughter of Jytte Correll and her husband Christian, and Ceská Lipa is a town in the Czech Republic, near Děčín and the German border, where the couple have lived for many years and where Jytte first founded her company. The glasses, vases, candlesticks and carafes distributed under the name of Anna von Lipa are a beautiful combination of two European traditions: Scandinavian design and Bohemian craftsmanship. The Czech Republic is renowned for its many glass-blowers, who mainly work in traditional family companies and produce magical glass creations. But they need designers to challenge them to create unusual works of art using contemporary forms and colours - just like those made by Anna von Lipa.

Falling in love

“Jytte originally ran her own design shop in Denmark. But she wanted to find out more about craftsmanship and so came to visit the region with her husband Christian, a talented businessman in his own right. They fell in love with the area and bought a farm and a small glass factory. That was a good 30 years ago now. Once their children had moved out, both of them moved over here permanently,” explains Lukas Polak.

Polak himself is from a family-run glassblowing business and worked for Correll and her husband before taking over their company a few years ago. It had become too much for the couple to keep running the company, but Correll is still heavily involved as a designer and brings lots of ideas to the table. “Just like for many Scandinavian designers, it’s incredibly important to Jytte that her work is aesthetically and financially accessible for as many people as possible,” says Polak. “She constantly comes up with new ideas after stumbling across things in flea markets or online and then works with her team of glass-blowers to create exactly what she wants. After a bit of hard work, there will be 100 unusual objects lying on the floor, some of which could be considered pieces of art. But she prefers to give these creations away rather than turn them into elitist one-off pieces for galleries or something like that. For her, her designs must be accessible.”

The fun twist that sets them apart

The glass objects from Anna von Lipa stand out with their cheerful, Mediterranean-inspired colours and lightness. Correll often travels around Spain and Southern France, and this is clearly reflected in her work. While the forms are typically Scandinavian, clean and simple, each of her pieces has a fun twist. “Her favourite colours are purple and olive green,” shares Polak. “People throughout Europe have a very similar taste, but the Danes have their own aesthetic ecosystem. This is what makes Anna von Lipa’s creations so special.”