Aleksander Puchała was an interior architect, but his professional life was connected with the „Julia” Crystal Glassworks in Szklarska Poręba, where his wife, Regina Włodarczyk-Puchała, brought him in. He combined work in industry with unique creativity.
He introduced many innovative designs into production. His projects of simple, symmetrical vases, mostly in the shape of cylinders and polyhedrons, definitively stood out from the mass products of other factories. At the same time, he created unique forms both from polished glass and glassworks-made, coloured glass, or that shaped by means of simple, hand-made tools. Puchała was famous for his excellent vase designs with architectural structure and rhythm given a deep cut. Free-moulded glasses show the enormous influence of nature, especially the difficult
climate of the Karkonosze Mountains in which he lived. The round, soft forms of vessels with small elements of colour bring to mind icicles, freezing water in streams or snowdrifts, which were characteristic elements of the winter landscape of Szklarska Poręba.
Justyna Wierzchucka
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Lived from 1931 to 1997 and studied at the Faculty of Interior Design at the State Higher School of Fine Arts (currently: E. Geppert Academy of Fine Arts) in Wrocław, graduating in the studio of Prof. Wladysław Wincze, 1956.
After graduation, he worked at the Design Office in Wrocław, where he was mainly involved in furniture design. From 1960, he worked as a glass designer and chief designer at the “Julia” Crystal Glass Factory in Szklarska Poręba.
He received several important awards in Poland in the field of design.
He took part in 5 national individual exhibitions and 15 group exhibitions in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, GDR, Germany, Hungary, and Yugoslavia.
He introduced to mass production designs of utility glass decorated with a handmade cut. Using the technological facilities of the glassworks and the available crystal, he also created unique artistic glass in the technique of free-form and ground glass, with the use of specially constructed tools. He was inspired by natural phenomena and architecture. He preferred simple forms, using crystal transparency and light fission properties.
He was one of the creators of unique glass belonging to the so-called “Wrocław School of Glass”.
He contributed to the increase in the quality of Polish industrial design and to the success of Polish projects abroad. Aleksander Puchała also played musical instruments. He was married to glass artist Regina Włodarczyk-Puchała.
