tittot: the home of luxury and tradition

tittot is rapidly building itself a reputation as one of the world's top names in design glass manufacturing. The company's wide selection of exquisite products ranges from the smallest crystal ornaments to massive cast glass monuments to fill a whole room with. In addition, tittot specializes in an ancient glassmaking technique called lost wax casting, where the mold used to shape the objects is destroyed after each casting.

tittot company ltd., which boasts its own factory in Shanghai and a glass art museum in Taipei, Taiwan, currently employs about 320 glassmakers, making it the biggest manufacturer of lost wax cast glass in the world. Today, its products are available through about 80 retail outlets around the world.

Mr. Yung-Shan Wang, the Chief Executive Officer of tittot told Radio86 about the company and about glass in general as an art medium.

Tradition made modern

The tittot company (ltd.) was founded in 1994 in Taiwan and the opening of the tittot Glass Art Museum in Taipei followed five years later in 1999. According to Wang, upon its opening, the tittot Glass Art Museum was recognized as the very first Chinese glass museum.

If tittot's products had to be compared to some other international brand name, the closest one might be the French company Daum, Wang says. They are made particularly unique by the lost wax casting technique used to make them. This process first appeared in China around 200 BCE and it has also been widely employed in casting bronze.

”This is a very special glassmaking technique, which involves a very long and complicated process. It makes it possible to add fine details to the objects. This type of glassmaking suits Chinese handcrafts and art well. So, our design is very much Chinese-oriented. We not only make very beautiful products, but there's always some Chinese philosophy, a story or lifestyle behind them, which make them quite unique, especially for Western people. And the technique used is quite complicated and time-consuming. Generally speaking, we're talking about casting glass in a mold. But one mold can only produce one piece, then it has to be destroyed. So, this can be very complicated.”

Mr. Yung-Shan Wang is the CEO of tittot glass. (Image: tittot)According to Wang, lost wax casting was used in China already thousands of years ago, but then it disappeared for a while. Ever since tittot revived this age-old technique, a lot more newcomers have joined the art glass industry. But when it comes to quality, tittot still stands head and shoulders above the rest, Wang says.

”In ancient China, we already had this kind of technique, but it had not been applied for almost 1000 years when we started researching and employing it some 20 years ago. Now, in Taiwan and China, this type of technique has become very popular. And all the individual studios and factories are related to our company. So, some of our technicians started to do it, but I believe that today, tittot still makes the finest and best-quality products.”

tittot's products are famous for their glowing colors and intricate details, which naturally make them popular gifts. However, due to the complicated technique used to make them, they also belong to the higher end of the price range.

”Using this technique, you can make very complicated shapes. In Europe, for example, the Czech Republic, they have very good cutting or engraving techniques. But I think in most European glass factories, they can't use the lost wax technique, which allows you to design very complicated shapes. In addition, we do cold work, which involves cutting and polishing the objects to enhance their brilliance even more. So, the quality of our products is very high, very much like the level of quality of Baccarat of France and Moser of the Czech Republic. This is why, today, our products have become popular gifts. When our president or high-ranking officials visit some foreign country, they usually offer our products as gifts, because they are very Chinese and have Chinese philosophy behind their design. And of course, since this technique is very complicated and demands a lot of work, the cost is high. Our ordinary items sell for around 100-500 USD. For the larger custom-made pieces, the total price can reach up to 50,000 USD or so. ”

tittot's products are renowned for their glowing colors and intricate details. (Image: tittot)

Not only can lost wax casting be used to make small and intricate glass objects, it can also be used to produce unique art pieces on a grander scale.

”Using this technique, we can make very, very large pieces. Actually, tittot currently makes the largest glass objects in the world. Some of them can weigh up to 500-600 kg a piece. Usually small pieces weigh maybe 1-2 kg, but we can make some very large pieces, because crystal is a very heavy material.”

Wang says that tittot 's designs are inherently Chinese, but in a very modern way.

”We don't necessarily use traditional Chinese forms in our designs; rather, we make them modern Chinese. There's no traditional Chinese, but I think that a Chinese person can tell immediately, that this is a Chinese object. The shape, of course is modern, but the story and philosophy behind it is Chinese.”

One-of-a-kind museum

The tittot Glass Art Museum encompasses a permanent exhibition of tittot's own production, a workshop area and a history section and a gallery for international visiting artists, among many other things. At present, the museum receives about 65,000 visitors year.

Since opening in 1999, the museum has organized about 20 different special exhibitions, showcasing the works of a variety of international glass makers such as American Robin Cass, Czech Jaromir Rybak and Japanese Hiroshi Yamano.

In addition, the museum organizes special workshops and camps designed to teach people about glassmaking.

This Four Seasons limited edition glass art piece weighs 64 kg. (Image: tittot)”We have in our museum a DIY class, where people can try some slumping or fusing techniques or make mold-made glass. Of course, in some special cases, we also arrange classes to teach these techniques in our museum, but only on special occasions, not on a day-to-day basis. If some people are very interested in learning this technique, we can arrange a special class for them.”

”In our museum in Taipei, we also have a showcase of the history of Chinese glass development from some 2,000 years back. I think we are supposed to have one of the world's largest Chinese antique glass collections in our museum. So, we have a very good antique Chinese glass collection and from time to time we display them. We also have an international gallery, and every year we invite two to three international artists to showcase their work in our museum. The last exhibition was for Japanese Toshikazu Kobayashi. We also have a technique showroom where international artists show what kind of techniques they apply in their artwork. We also have a 'Hot Shop', which means that we have a resident artist here blowing glass to demonstrate their techniques to the visitors.”

Glass, a new trend in collectibles

Wang says that art glass as a collectible has experienced a veritable boom over the last few decades. The works of international glassmakers are becoming increasingly sought after items at prestigious art auctions.

”Up until the early 1960's, glass in general was not a very popular art medium. Back then, art glass was pretty much only made in some eastern European countries like the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. But in the 70's, artists in the United States discovered this material and started to use it to create art. From then on, glass artists have been gaining more and more popularity around the world. I would say that in the United States, they are very popular now. The works of some outstanding American artists are widely collected and fetch very good prices at art sales. Now the trend is also spreading in western and northern Europe, in England and Sweden, for example. Nowadays, people in Taiwan are also starting to pay more attention to this material, and more and more people have started to collect glass art pieces. So, it is getting more and more popular.”

A world of glass

The tittot Glass Art Museum offers the perfect opportunity to plunge into the exciting world of glass for anyone moved by the aesthetics of this art form. The collections, comprising some of the world's most beautiful art pieces, perfectly illustrate the endless possibilities that glass as a material offers.

More information about tittot and the tittot Glass Art Museum can be found on the company's website at www.tittot.com.

The tittot Glass Art Museum is open Tuesday - Sunday 9am - 5pm.
Address: 16, Lane 515, Sec. 4, Zhongyang N. Rd., Peitou District, Taipei, Taiwan
Admission fee: 100 NTD