Kaj Franck KF 235 'Lentävä lautanen' (Flying Saucer) Art Object

A model KF 235 'Lentävä lautanen' ('Flying Saucer'), designed by Kaj Franck in 1956 for Nuutajärvi Notsjö, Finland.

One of the rarest and most scarcely seen designs by Kaj Franck, this sculptural art object reveals a more playful and experimental side to his work.

Designed during a period of immense technological optimism, the piece takes its inspiration and name from the flying saucers that captured public imagination worldwide during the 1950s. Composed of two truncated cones placed base to base, its broad flattened profile unmistakably evokes the popular image of an unidentified flying object, whilst remaining sufficiently abstract to be chic.

Indeed, the success of the object lies in its ambiguity. Viewed from one angle it appears almost weightless, hovering just above the surface upon which it rests. From another, it becomes a weighty exercise in pure geometry, composed of simple yet substantial cones with carefully balanced proportions.

Moreover, like many of Franck's most successful glass objects, Lentävä lautanen relies upon the material itself for much of its visual effect. That said, describing precisely how light behaves within this design is difficult.

Not only is the exterior of the object a rather unusual prism, in the truest sense. The hollowed out interior, emphasised using glass blowing colour techniques, introduces an additional optical complexity.

The glass used to produce this design is both cased and flashed. At its core is a Tyrian-purple interior, cased in a dark yet crystal-clear sea blue, before being finished with a thin flashed layer of clear glass.

Combined with the complex form, the result is an interplay of refraction and reflection which confounds density and transparency, as the object continually changes according to its surroundings and the position of the viewer.

Both a product of its era and remarkably contemporary in appearance, 'Lentävä lautanen' remains one of the most distinctive, imaginative, and technical brilliant objects produced by Nuutajärvi Notsjö.