Olga Engel is a successful product designer, who harmoniously fuses materiality with minimalism while twisting functionality with a light mood and poetic touch of irony.

In my practice as a designer, I push materials to their boundaries, often questioning common notions. Does marble always have to look heavy? Can steel look soft? By creating shapes that verge on the impossible, I confuse the viewers, make them lose their balance briefly, and stimulate them to look at familiar materials with a fresh eye.

Like the materiality that is the result, the transformational techniques in my practice are paradoxical: both centuries-old, e.g. the laborious sanding and polishing of marble, and ultramodern, e.g. 3D scanning or CNC milling. It is in this meeting of extremes that my works are nestled.”