I am looking for a challenge

Thomas Wenzel picks up where others give up. The chief designer at KPM Berlin seeks out challenges. “When someone says something can’t be done or is too complicated, that’s when I get curious,” he says. From that perspective, a material as difficult to work with as porcelain is exactly right for him. It fascinates him. He’s convinced that it’s a living material, that it has a soul: “Porcelain is a pain in the neck.” It acts like a diva. It doesn’t forgive mistakes, and you can’t get away with just anything when working with it. He talks about porcelain as if it were a living being that’s always good for a surprise.

His studio is located - somewhat hidden - on a mezzanine floor of the manufactory, with the porcelain painters above and the management and trainees below. It is bright and light, a wall has just been broken through to give him more space for his designs, which he works on with an assistant and a trainee. Wenzel prefers to talk standing up, walks around, leans against the edge of the table and picks up his latest notes. He is currently working on his LAB BERLIN series, a collection of pieces with clear lines and shapes, inspired by the laboratory porcelains from times gone by that are still in the manufactory. He is reinterpreting them, adapting them to contemporary tableware and also designing products for the kitchen, such as a mortar with a heavy pestle or a lemon squeezer that looks like a sculpture and which he will probably be tinkering with for some time before it can be produced.

Wenzel was born in Gera in 1963, attended the University of Applied Arts in Schneeberg and then completed his training as a porcelain painter. In 1989, he came to Berlin to join KPM, before which he was employed at Meissen. The 54-year-old has now been working at KPM for more than half of his life. He progressed from porcelain painter to master painter and finally became head designer in 1998. KPM was actually only supposed to be a stopover for him, but then he got stuck, "because there was so much to do here," he recalls of the early years. Back then, there was no in-house development. This was to change with Thomas Wenzel, who became head of the artistic development department at KPM in 1993. During this time, the internationally renowned designer Enzo Mari also joined the manufactory for five years. It was a good and instructive time for Thomas Wenzel, during which he worked with Mari to launch the BERLIN shape, for example, which later won the iF Design Award.

In addition to the famous currywurst bowl featuring the KURLAND relief and the KURLAND cereal, the KURLAND Service BLANC NOUVEAU also traces its origins back to his design work. He created it to mark KPM’s 250th anniversary. That was in 2013. Such innovations have always met with resistance from regular customers, who, for example, had a hard time accepting thecup the KURLAND style. Wenzel isn’t bothered by that:

The best products are the ones that are discussed the most.

He describes his working method as "solution-oriented", for example when it comes to the idea of producing colored masses. About four years ago, he noticed that "pastel colors are a very beautiful theme". He spent a long time tinkering and thinking about the methods and limits of the material until he was able to implement double mass casting with white and mint-colored porcelain. The porcelain is not glazed in color, but fired in colored porcelain and then glazed. With this so-called bicolor process, which he likes to use for the LAB series, he succeeds in two things: maintaining the high quality and standard of KPM porcelain and at the same time achieving a further unique selling point within the product range. He also came up with another innovation: no longer hiding the distinctive KPM label with the blue sceptre at the bottom of the cups, pots or plates, but making it visible and using it as a design element to set the scene.

Thomas Wenzel rarely works on a computer. When an idea comes to him, the quickest way for him to capture it is by drawing by hand—first a rough sketch, then more detailed drawings. This is how the double-walled thermal coffee filter came to be, which won the internationally coveted iF Gold Award in the “Product” category in 2016. Even he was surprised by this. “I didn’t expect such recognition,” he says. Thomas Wenzel’s overall functional and visual concept won over the jury. In their statement, they said: “It’s great to see that the ‘ Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin ’ is back in the game—with a completely new and innovative perspective on a low-tech product like the coffee filter.”

And indeed, KPM is back in the game. For several years now, things have been changing at the porcelain manufactory, which can look back on a tradition spanning more than 250 years and which, in the past, has always been very committed to preserving and carrying on the old ways—from the classicist KURLAND tableware set to Bauhaus-inspired designs such as URBINO or ARKADIA. But now there are initial signs of a shift away from Prussian austerity toward contemporary designs that fit the 21st century. This is due in part to Jörg Woltmann, who saved KPM from bankruptcy a good ten years ago, but also to Thomas Wenzel, who enjoys Woltmann’s trust and understands how to balance the fine line between the legacy of the past and the path to the future—a path that begins precisely where others give up.

Text: Heike Gläser

Wenzel's works

These products from Thomas Wenzel are causing a stir and winning designer awards.