Pahka is a 1970s green glass vase designed by Kaj Blomqvist for Kumela, the family-run glassworks in Riihimäki, Finland. The model name means "burl" in Finnish, the knotted growth found on birch and pine trunks, and some sellers also list it under the Natura name.
Blomqvist came to glass from metalwork. He trained as a silversmith in Helsinki, worked for Georg Jensen in Denmark and for the Finnish silver house Kultakeskus, and in the 1970s became one of Kumela's leading designers. His vases for the factory take their cues from the Finnish landscape: Kallio refers to rock, Petäjä to pine, and Pahka to the rough swelling of a tree.
The idea is easy to read in this piece. A straight, slightly tapering body in pale green glass carries a crackled, bark-like surface, and near the mouth the glass thickens into a heavy, lumpy collar in a much deeper green. Light passing through the thick rim and the thin walls gives two distinct shades of the same colour, and the thick, solid base gives the vase a reassuring weight.
Because the texture forms differently in each casting, no two Pahka vases have exactly the same collar, which makes this one a single, individual example of 1970s Finnish nature-inspired glass.
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