JEAN-PAUL LESPAGNARD / SILVERSQUARE TABLEWARE

Object / Design & production / Client : Silversquare

Designing the restaurant, I felt the tableware had to carry the same creative narrative.

This tableware collection for the Silver Square restaurant in Liège grew naturally from the space itself. As I was designing the interior, it felt essential to extend that vision to the objects that would live on the table. I wanted the plates, the glasses, the bowls to belong to the same language, to carry the same energy, to participate in the experience as much as the architecture does.
I worked closely with artisans in Mexico, collaborating with glassblowers in the region of Guadalajara and ceramic makers in Puebla. These exchanges were about engaging with tradition, shifting it, allowing it to move into another context.
For this collection, I drew from graphic elements rooted in popular visual culture, then translated them into something more domestic. I was interested in that feeling of opening a cupboard and finding a cup that might seem slightly off, even a bit awkward, yet impossible to discard because it holds memory. Objects that are not perfect, but deeply attached to life.
The bowls with black drops come from a traditional technique from Puebla. I chose to transform it. Instead of covering the entire surface with glaze, we developed a way to leave the terracotta visible beneath thick black drops. The result is highly contrasted, almost raw. Over time, the material absorbs traces of use. A stain does not disappear, it settles, it becomes part of the object. I was drawn to this idea that the tableware continues to evolve, that it records gestures, meals, presence.
The plates are a direct tribute to Picasso ceramics. I reinterpreted one of his plate drawings in a very naïve way. Then I introduced blown glass elements, which is quite unusual for plates. Two small glass circles sit on the glass surface, forming the cheeks of the face. I developed three variations with red, blue, or yellow cheeks, allowing each plate to complete the expression differently. I called the series “Picassiette”, as a playful nod to the act of borrowing and transforming.
The glassware follows another narrative. I imagined a sequence inspired by molten lava. The colors move from bright yellows and reds to deep blacks with traces of red, as if the material was slowly cooling. Each glass becomes a moment within that transformation, capturing a state between fluidity and solidity.
Across the collection, I was not looking for neutrality or perfection. I wanted pieces that feel alive, that shift with use, that connect the table to a wider geography of materials, hands, and stories.