Katsina Paiakyamu Contemporary Glass Sculpture

Edgar Orlaineta is one of Mexico’s most conceptually refined sculptors of his generation. His practice bridges the history of modern design and the critical discourse of contemporary art, questioning the utopian ideals embedded in mid-century modernism. By hybridizing architecture, furniture, and sculpture, Orlaineta reconstructs the modernist canon through a Latin American lens, transforming industrial icons into poetic, hand-crafted objects that reflect on authorship, material culture, and collective memory.

Orlaineta’s work represents a crucial dialogue between design history and the post-colonial re-interpretation of modernism — positioning him among the most influential voices in the Mexican contemporary art scene.

OUR STORY Since the beginning of Nouvel, we established our values on three essential pillars that underpin our DNA and define the projects we have developed over the last thirty years: innovation, timelessness and luxury. Innovating with manufacturing processes has led us to think outside the box and to experiment with new methods, such as blowing glass in atypical molds made of volcanic stone, sand, or thin sheets of plywood, providing surprising aesthetic results. OUR LIMITED EDITIONS In a continuous search for creative exploration, we collaborate with renowned young designers such as Julie Richoz, Perla Valtierra and Nicolas Le Moigne, but also with artists with a broad creative trajectory such as Edgar Orlaineta, Jan Hendrix and Monica Guggisberg and Philipp Baldwin, with whom we created limited and collective author editions. OUR HIGH DESIGN GLASSWARE Since its creation over thirty years ago, Nouvel has built up a high-end glassware catalog of over eighty products, including vases, glasses, carafes and bowls. Created and designed for everyday use, these timeless pieces were initially conceived by Alonso González and Michael Kramer, with additional contributions from prominent designers and architects such as Ramírez Vázquez.