Riedel: It’s A Family Point
Throughout the Seventeenth Century, Bohemia, in the after that Austro-Hungarian Empire, was the glass making capital of Europe. Its relatively endless woodlands gave the glass manufacturers all the timber they required to fire their stoves.
The Riedel tale began with Johann Christoph. Born in 1678, he functioned as a vendor based in Sudetenland as well as made a small lot of money by exporting the glasses generated in his residence region, as far an area as Spain as well as Portugal. Although travel back then was difficult and also in some cases dangerous, the money he made more than compensated him for any kind of pain he sustained.
Johann’s kid: Johann Carl earned a living in his very own glass cutting and also gilding workshop. Yet it had not been until the end of the Austrian-Prussian Seven-Year Battle in 1756 that the Riedel family members really started to make their mark.
The area’s property had actually been ravaged throughout this time around and also significant re-development work taken place. Johann Leopold developed the family members’s first glass jobs, which opened up for organization in 1756 as well as specialized in making substitute home windows. His actual specialty was that he developed an approach whereby damaged tarnished glass, which would have cost a tiny lot of money to fix, was changed with normal window panes.
As the future generation, in the form of Anton Leopold, took the helm, the firm’s procedures moved away from window panes and the emphasis moved towards elaborate glass and also chandelier elements.
A couple of generation later, and also the Riedel glass functions relocated to Polaun. Now, firing glass ovens by melting hardwood was old hat. Coal was both less expensive and also a lot more effective and with Polaun being on the rail-network, shipment could be made directly to the factory. The rail link additionally offered in despatching the ended up items effortlessly. At this moment in its history, Riedel used some twelve hundred or two employees, creating generally glass grains as well as spaces that were after that sold on to completing shops. Advertising and marketing was left in the hands of a collection of trading business, exporting the grains as far a field as India and also South America.
As a result of the grains being marketed in this manner, the Riedel name never ever showed up on any kind of until 1890 when Josef Riedel The Younger headed the business. Being and also superb drug store as well as engineer, he changed the grain production process by utilizing mechanical cutters and also introduced a range of some six hundred colors.
During The Second World War, the Riedel glass works fell into the hands of the Nazis when they attacked Czechoslovakia. Riedel was forced to desert the manufacture of luxury goods as well as, instead, tackle the advancement of “picture tubes” which were an indispensable part of the German’s radar system. Regrettably, when the Russians got into Berlin in 1945, among these Riedel picture tubes was discovered and also the inventor, Walter Riedel, was sent to prison for 10 years as well as made to benefit them.
Whilst Walter was locked away in Russia, the now Communist, Czech federal government took the Riedel family members’s properties and also took charge of, and also nationalized, their firms.
On being launched from imprisonment in 1955, Walter went back to Austria where household close friends, the Swarovskis, funded the opening of a factory, headed by Walter as well as his boy, Claus J. It opened its doors in 1956, focusing on mouth blown glass products.
Claus J. introduced the manufacturing of art forms to the manufacturing facility as well as began upon the development of the, now, globe famous Riedel Stemware. Steering clear of the typical heavy, cut glass, Claus went for thin-blown, lengthy wine glasses and also got much, world large, affection from both clients and also museums alike.
Today, 11 generations later, Riedel is an international business with Maximillian Josef heading operations in The United States and Canada as well as Riedel enjoying unmatched success.