Craftsarchive

“You become really fond of beekeeping per se, it just grows on you through the years; then you see you can live off it and suddenly it’s more than a hobby.”

Sabina Simović and her brother Damir Krdžović are now the second generation taking care of the family business. Today, they are one of the leaders in the production of tailor-made and children’s furniture on the Serbian market. With lots of space and also their own transport and install team, Xylon are able to handle entire interior projects, from sketches, over production, to installation.

“The repetitive patterns, all that welding and sanding, that’s not what I call forging. If it doesn’t involve fire, or if you don’t make it from one piece, it just doesn’t mean the same to me.”

Small company for mechanical and manual wood processing specialized in manufacturing and processing of rare form of partly fossilized timber bog oak, which has even been adopted as a company name. Established as a family business, handed down from father to son, Carpentry Franjić tracks more then 6 decades long experience.

With over 140 years long legacy Hat making Škrgatić holds the title of the oldest hat making production in Croatia, taking pride in the family owned and operated business rooted in knowledge transfer and polishing of the craft. Its current owner Darko Škrgatić followed in his great grandfather’s footsteps and continued the family trade in 2005 upon his completion of Faculty of Textiles, Leather and Design where he received a master hat maker title.

The manufacturer of wooden-soled shoes combines fully automated and handcrafted workflows smartly. Around 20.000 pairs of wooden-soled boots, sandals and Hölzler leave serial production each year. In-store marketing relies on the expertise of shop assistants, whereas online marketing opens up international networks and markets.

“Very often people don't even know what kind of shoes they want, but after we’ve got to know each other a little we can agree on a model that matches their personality and dress style. Another thing to consider is how the shoes will be used. The style and construction also have to take into consideration the shape of the foot.”

The Šestine umbrella, also a symbol of Zagreb, is Cerovečki’s bestseller umbrella. The pattern, originally from Spain, was brought to Croatia during the Napoleonic conquests and took hold in the Northern parts of Croatia, Slovenia, Italy and Austria.

The company´s knowledge in technology and design is brought to par in the field of building construction and civil and structural engineering. The flag-ship product is fair-faced concrete, a result of carefully executed processes, bearing witness to the knowledge and skill of the craftsmen behind it. There is a strong team behind this visionary and responsible player in the construction industry.

The origins of the business are in Zdravko’s original, small workshop he first ran in Slovenia, and decided to move to Serbia after the breakup of former Yugoslavia, where he restarted the workshop together with his wife Tatjana, operating from within their home kitchen, already working on bigger projects prior to moving to its current location.

Vesna Hrkač has inherited the bookbinding trade from her grandfather and mother. She is specialized in gold foil-printing, and has devoted herself in the past years to restoring rare and antiquarian books as well as antique and desktop leather goods, which gave the whole workshop a new artisanal aspect.

Having home and workshop in close proximity is rather common for craftspeople in the Bregenzerwald. In many cases, this leads to children becoming familiar with what their parents do from an early age. In Ewald Voppichler’s case this meant that “the children have spent more time in the workshop than in their sandpit. They have known about stoves forever. They practically inherited that knowledge.”

“When one learns to make a džezva, one becomes a master, and can do pretty much anything.”

Already at the age of 10, Bane took an active part in the family work around the shoe handmaking, and later on attended specialized school for leather workers, upgrading his solid knowledge base with aspects of the industrial type of shoe production, as those schools were actually grooming future factory workers for the leather industry. Bane is very keen on sharing his knowledge, be it online by posting details of his work process and explaining it, or in person through one of his shoemaking courses that are an integral part of his array of services.

Georg Bechter enjoyed the luxury of having a workshop from an early age. In his family’s barn he experimented with plaster and silicone, building his first stencils and moulds. Over the years, the barn became too small for his series of casting and finishing of lighting modules. In 2020, Bechter wants to have all fields of business under one roof.

“It started the usual way, you begin at the bottom. Then you get to make plates, ashtrays and similar. A bowl here and there, and flower pot saucers.”

Lapidarium is an extension of the family business rooted in traditional jewellery making, established in 1990 by the Nokaj family, renowned for its characteristic designs and use of high quality components in production of both limited and commercial fine jewellery. It came about from an idea to highlight the artistic production set by the next generation of Nokaj goldsmiths, and has been acting as an independent showroom since 2011.

“It's a family craft business. Why is it called a family business? Because it’s passed on from generation to generation.”

Manuela Maaß explores and pushes the boundaries of her profession as a tailor. Her master pieces are made-to-measure suits, manifestations of tailor-made-solutions. She documents all of her expertise and skill that is not commonly known and keeps an archive with all the shapes, patterns and details specific to uniforms of bands, clubs and unions preserving them for future generations of tailors to come.

The Clockmaker’s shop Lebarović was founded in 1947 by Simeon Lebarović. The shop first specialized in repairing wall clocks and alarm clocks, and was finally hired for the production and maintenance of public clocks in Zagreb.

Urban Magušar had eight different workshops in Ljubljana and Radovljica, where he has now settled, having found excellent working conditions there. Magušar’s house features an atrium that houses the living and working areas, a small library with more than 500 books on ceramics, a museum, and storage for clay and other materials.

Bojana graduated in Belgrade from the Faculty of Philology, in Chinese Language and Literature. While she was studying, she was renting a small studio, and decided to turn ceramics into her professional hobby. Now she sees Boya Porcelain not as a hobby, but as a long-term entrepreneurial commitment. You could call Boya Porcelain a newly-established family business, as her husband Rade is handling all of the business and administration aspects of the enterprise.

Choosing the best material is key in making high-quality wooden windows in the workshop of Claus Schwarzmann. Everyone involved needs to know about the treatment of wood, it`s properties, characteristics and advantages.

Since 1995, "Bosiljčić" is the only remaining traditional workshop making candies and Turkish delights in Belgrade. The main raw material is sugar. Their assortment is the same no matter the current trends and offer a total of around 30 products. They are overall enthusiastic about the future of their business, which not so often heard from traditional craftsmen.

“They’re slightly more straightforward, but the honey bread is still full enough. I make the decorative mould more lace-like, finer, whereas I make each cut in the baking mould three times, to make sure it’s really well-opened and the bread gets a really nice pattern.”

“It’s simple — you just have to know how to wear it. If it fits the head, a straw hat looks good on everyone.”

Naša posla is the brainchild of two girls who wanted to change their professional direction. They started around 2012 and focused on working with leather. Snežana Veljković focused on handmade leather shoes, while Marija Đorđević started designing and hand making handbags and backpacks.

After returning from Germany to Serbia in 2017, Maja Jakšić sourced a temporary, spacious 200 m² workspace in an old industrial facility in lower Dorćol neighbourhood. She intended to set up a silk-screen printing studio, in which also other designers could come to execute their own designs. That is how Vilenica studio was born.

Markus Faißt´s understanding of making furniture follows the principles of building biology and meets ecological criteria. The workshop is considered to be a place of knowledge where he and his team are dedicated to make everyday cultural goods. Using only the highest quality is key when turning solid wood into products of purpose and beauty, using only local woods is a commitment to the region.

Nenad Jovanov is high-spirited third generation perfume maker. He is now the only remaining perfumer still operating in Belgrade. Desires and needs of customers are carefully taken into account, and the craftsman is often willing to experiment with their requirements, producing a customized version of something he knows well. Nenad is also an amazing storyteller, able to transpose the spirits of times passed, and an extremely open and active person for his age, happy to share his stories with customers or researchers alike.

Maintaining the company’s good reputation and attracting good professionals also in the future is the vision of a family of cabinet makers, whose history goes back to 1910. Today the fourth generation is ready to meet the future with artistic and cultural minds in this innovative workshop.

Pomelaj, a rural development cooperative that operates at the Sabol homestead in Mala Polana, charged with preserving and passing on the basketmaking tradition. Initially, Pomelaj served as a hub for local craftspeople and eventually transformed into an employment centre for the disabled, which continues to foster and build on the traditional craft of corn husk and willow weaving.

Mala Arta ceramics studio was established around 1999, by master conservator-restorer with an academic background in Fine Arts and his wife who was a practicing architect. It was built around a family affiliation towards producing small series of handmade ceramics, which is continued by their son Lovro Krizman in recent years, a conservator himself.

Zagorščak family has cultivated the material heritage of Croatian Zagorje for generations and represents the remaining wickerwork weavers. They have practiced and perfected a specific type of weaving with dried bulrush plants, particularly popular in their hometown of Kamenica where their workshop is based.

Horn Cheese is exclusively produced in the Mühle-Hub Cooperative dairy. The milk originates from cows with horns and is stored to set in traditional wooden tubs, made by a cooper in a nearby village. Traditional knowledge and techniques are transferred by a dairyman, who still can be called “an artist by thousand trades”.

It was Beno Ogrin’s grandfather, a joiner, who first evoked his interest in manual work. As a child there was nothing he enjoyed more than taking over his grandfather's workshop as soon as the old man took his rest after lunch, and the little man could explore the materials at hand without distractions. “It’s when you destroy a material or when something you didn't want to do happens to it, that's when you really get to know it. You learn how far it can go.”

Woodworker Fink draws his knowledge from a deep familiarity with the forest and the trees and from exclusively working with local wood. He processes the whole tree, using both knot-rich and knot-poor parts and creating new expressions of wood. Conical laying pattern and mixed lengths and widths of the boards of either floors, walls or ceilings reveal how Fink’s cut follows the growth of a spruce or a fir.

Since 2006, Antun and his wife Danica who helps with product sales, are work-ing from their home and trying to revive the traditional ways of production of everyday objects made from animal horn. Antun is probably one of the last comb makers in Europe, retiring later this year.

Aleksandar’s grandfather and uncle started the family business before the Second World War, in the style of what is nowadays called a serial entrepreneur, with workshops in some of the main streets of downtown Belgrade.