Photo: Kofi Paintsil
Vanja Bazdulj is an architect, designer and curator who intertwines various creative disciplines and creates at the intersection of architecture, interior, furniture and lighting design. Although she began her career as an architect, her exploration of materials and forms led her to create unique ceramics, which she develops under the House on Mars brand.
After more than a decade of creating and teaching in London, where she ran the House on Mars gallery, she returned to Slovenia, where she combines architectural design with ceramic practice. Her handmade ceramic collections are aesthetically refined yet playful – often characterized by soft pastel colors, minimalist yet unexpected shapes, and an emphasis on the uniqueness of each piece. Her products are not just functional, but tell a story about the connection between tradition, material, and contemporary design.
The House on Mars brand has been featured at prestigious international exhibitions such as the Crafts Councils Collect in London, where it has received prestigious awards for its exceptional layout and design. Her ceramic collections reflect a thoughtful approach to the material, combining a minimalist aesthetic with unexpected shapes and playful details. She is characterised by an experimental creative process – often working intuitively, without a strict plan, which gives her products a sense of spontaneity and liveliness. Each piece is formed organically, through the interplay of structure, texture and colour.
Her collections, such as Naive Tableware , are characterized by their emphasis on natural textures and matte surfaces that are both archaic and contemporary. Her cups, plates and jugs feature subtle irregularities that stem from her desire to express the individuality of each piece. Her designs often start from geometric bases, which she then breaks up with raw, hand-crafted details – creating a tension between the perfect and the imperfect, reflecting influences from the punk aesthetic .
Punk culture, marked by a DIY spirit and resistance to standardization, strongly permeates her work. For her, ceramics are not just a traditional craft, but a medium of experimentation and expression – her pieces often carry a slightly provocative character, whether in the form of unexpected color contrasts, unusual proportions or imperfect, raw edges that give the impression of deliberate incongruity. In doing so, she consciously breaks the classical canons of beauty and offers an alternative to the overly polished and uniformed aesthetics of industrial production.
Her work resonates with design enthusiasts who appreciate unique, handcrafted objects with a strong personal touch. It is precisely this unique connection between aesthetics, materiality and a rebellious creative spirit that makes her pieces popular in both private interiors and curated design collections and galleries.
In addition to her ceramic design, Vanja continues to work as an architect and interior designer, exploring the interplay of functionality and artistic expression. Her work is both exploratory and intuitive, with a strong focus on experimentation with materials and the interweaving of different creative practices.
You can view and purchase Vanja's Naive Tableware mugs here .