TRADITION
PRESERVATION OF BOHEMIAN
GLASSBLOWING TRADITION
Brokis is the brainchild of successful Czech
entrepreneur Jan Rabell. In 2006, he founded the
brand Brokis as a platform to enliven and elevate
Bohemian glassmaking to new heights and preserve
generations of knowledge and craftsmanship.
Nearly ten years prior, in 1997, he acquired the ailing
Janštejn Glassworks, founded at the start of the 19th
century approximately 140 kilometres southeast of
Prague. Demand for traditional products had declined
significantly, many of the glassmakers were growing
old and leaving, and time-honoured technologies
and techniques were at risk of being lost. Mr. Rabell’s
vision was to restore the factory to its former prestige
and ensure that the ages-old Bohemian glassmaking
tradition endured into the 21st century.
With Brokis, Jan Rabell created a lighting brand
offering entirely different products than those
previously produced at Janštejn Glassworks. Several
new Italian-style furnaces were built, and production
techniques were refined. Some, such as grinding and
glass painting, were discontinued, and others were
revived, e.g., glassblowing using optic moulds, and
traditional hotshop techniques. Original and nearly
forgotten formulas for manufacturing coloured glass
were reinstated and are now characteristic of the
Brokis brand.
Brokis has firmly established itself as a leading
innovator in glass lighting. For example, the complex
technology applied in production of the Night Birds
collection, which consists of imposing yet elegant
curved glass silhouettes of birds in various phases
of flight, required two years of experimentation to
perfect. Today, Brokis and Janštejn Glassworks employ
a total of 100 people and enjoy a unique symbiosis
that has allowed Brokis to launch sales operations
in 70 countries and showcase its renowned lighting
collections at the world’s top design exhibitions.
