How are the Iittala Birds born?

The Iittala Birds are born out of two strong, old traditions: first, there is the tradition of passionate artists creating visions of creatures from another world, from the land of the imagination. Secondly there is the tradition of skilful craftsmen giving the visions body and soul - in the shape of glass.

The first glass birds were designed by the Finnish glass artist, Oiva Toikka, in the beginning of the 1970s. From the Toikka Birds the collection has developed into Iittala birds and spread all over the world. Now the Vigna Collection of Iittala Birds has been launched.

Birth of the birds at Nuutajärvi

All Iittala birds are hand made at Nuutajärvi, a small village in Southern Finland, where the Nuutajärvi glass factory is situated. The factory is over 200 years old. Nowadays it is focusing on making artistic pieces and special coloured products.

The raw materials of glass are mixed at the factory; glass consists of natural ingredients like sand, soda and lime. For coloured glass additional ingredients are added - like cobalt for blue glass. All the main raw materials are melted in a glass furnace at a temperature of 1400°C until the glass mass is liquid. The melting process takes about 15 hours.

Blowing is team work

Usually glass blowers work in teams of 3 to 5 individual blowers. When they start to make a bird, a junior glass blower takes his blowing pipe and takes a small portion of the liquid glass mass, a gather, and starts to work on it, by blowing and giving the mass a form with different kind of tools. Stage by stage the bird starts to get its shape.

Still, more glass needs to be added stage by stage, colour by colour. The head and the tail have to be worked out. Finally the master glass blower finishes the bird.

It takes at least 10 years to become a master in blowing, being able to blow complicated objects like birds. The master glass blower Timo Niekka has over 30 years of experience. Still he wants to point out how vulnerable the process is:

“Throughout the working process the temperature of the glass mass needs to be kept at approximately 700°C. That we keep by reheating the mass over and over again. Otherwise it gets too stiff and we can’t work on it. Obviously in this work timing is everything.”

After working out the birds are put very carefully into an annealing furnace where they cool down very slowly. For the bigger birds it can take days to cool down from the temperature of 500°C into room temperature. If the products are not cooled down slowly enough, the inner tension of glass can make them break down even after some years.

Finishing touches are hard work

Especially the Vigna birds need a lot of finishing stages after they’ve been cooled down. The tail and the beak need to be cut and polished. Working on the hard glass mass requires both power and skills - and a good eye for detail.

Glass Masters Teppo Lehtinen and Seppo Luoto have long experience in working on the birds:

‘It has been very interesting to see, how these old techniques can be used for creating something totally new, something so imaginative.’”

The planning process of Vigna collection started in summer 2005, as Vigna visited Nuutajärvi. Over the winter many experiments and prototypes were made. Vigna came over to evaluate and discuss the shapes and colours; all together it took the blowers about half a year to find the right technique to make the Vigna birds. Though Vigna was always very amicable, he was very strict about the design details - they had to be right.

“We have been very happy to work closely together with both artists, Oiva Toikka and Giorgio Vigna. In that way we’ve got to know their intentions and are able to concretise their ideas in the best possible way.”

The quality of each bird is carefully inspected by hand and trained eyes. The signature of the artist in engraved into the bottom of each bird - and the glass jewels are ready to take off to the world.