Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny was born in Slovakia in 1979. He studied engineering and design at the Technical University Košice in Slovakia between 1999-2001. In 2001, he was awarded an Open Society Foundation fellowship, which he used to study painting and sculpture at the University of Washington in Seattle between 2001 and 2002. Libertíny went on to study painting and conceptual design at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, earning a Bachelor’s degree in 2004. After receiving the prestigious Huygens Scholarship in 2005, he enrolled in the Design Academy Eindhoven’s masters program under Gijs Bakker, where he received his MFA in 2006.
After graduation, Libertíny worked for Maarten Baas (2006-2007), Vincent de Rijk (2006-2007), Demakersvan (2007), and Joris Laarman (2007). He founded Studio Libertiny in 2007 in Rotterdam. His designs are the result of studies and investigations into the relationship between nature, science, and technology. Notable projects include the Honeycomb Vase (conceived 2005, executed 2006-2010), for which a swarm of bees creates a hive around a pre-made, vase-shaped beeswax scaffold structure (and which the designer refers to as a “slow prototyping” process, in direct contrast to the era’s rapid manufacturing technologies) as well as the Vessels series (2011), made from beeswax, metal, and glass.
Libertíny’s client list includes Louis Vuitton, FENDI, and Christofle. Awards include Designers of the Future at Design Miami/Basel (2009) as well as nominations for the Henraux Foundation Award (2012) and the Czechoslovakian pavilion at the Dutch Design Awards (2009). His work has been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Corning Museum of Glass in New York, the Henraux Foundation in Italy, and the Museum of Design and Contemporary Applied Arts in Lausanne.
