The Artists of Lapponia.

French jewelry designer and artist Christophe Burger has designed jewelry for Lapponia since 1989. After taking a degree in English language and literature he went on to study jewelry design and goldsmithery at the Strasbourg School of Applied Arts. Burger has been making unique pieces of jewelry and objets d'art at his own studio workshop, in Colmar, France since 1977.

Burger's design is a skillful combination of French avant-garde and Finnish craftsmanship. The design language of his jewelry is geometric, often highlighted using diamonds or colorful gemstones. For Christophe Burger, jewelry is a clear means of communication — as is reflected in the apt names of the pieces and their carefully contemplated design. The name of each piece and the associations it creates are an intelligent mental game for each individual, a game in which the artist challenges us to take part. A piece of jewelry conveys individualism; it is like the language of social interaction between people.

Poul Havgaard, a Danish blacksmith and jewelry designer, began his long association with Lapponia Jewelry in 1971. Although his creativity began when he was a blacksmith, he has restored murals and frescos in medieval churches...and has designed ceramics collections for well-known companies. As a jewelry designer, Havgaard made a name for himself in the 1960s with the unique pieces of jewelry and sculptures he forged in iron and steel, his favorite materials. He still creates these pieces in his workshop on the island of Fyn, in Denmark.

Havgaard's design language can be characterized as organic, and close to nature. The asymmetric forms so popular in his pieces of jewelry create a perfectly balanced whole. Havgaard considers that adorning oneself for another person is one of the key factors that has influenced culture.

The artist often likes to emphasize the sensual nature of jewelry. Pieces of jewelry are part of the body language of sensuality, important tools in influencing the other sex.

Hungarian sculptor and jewelry designer Zoltan Popovits joined Lapponia's team of designers in 1975. His first work was a sterling silver chess set. Since studying architecture and art in the USA, Popovits has exerted considerable influence as a sculptor and ceramic artist in Finland. In his pieces of jewelry, he seeks the same individuality and proximity to nature which prevails in the jewelry philosophy of primitive peoples. He aims to give each piece of jewelry the same expressiveness and significance in the eyes of people today as it had in the eyes of American Indians, whose culture involved an extremely close bond between jewelry and its wearer. Each piece of jewelry has unique significance for its wearers, connecting them to a certain person, time and place.

Professor Björn Weckström, Finnish sculptor and jewelry designer, has worked for Lapponia Jewelry since 1963. The gold nuggets Weckström found in Lapland in the early 1960s were the start of an entirely new jewelry design, a design inspired by nature. A forerunner in his field, the artist breaks the traditional concepts of jewelry design by boldly combining different materials.

Weckström considers the brilliance of gold on the surface of a piece of jewelry to be somewhat artificial...and his creations seek to liberate gold from this cold brilliance and to replace it with the warm, matte glow characteristic of genuine gold. His collection of silver jewelry is also of major importance in freeing jewelry design from its traditional forms. Weckström perceives gold as having a dramatic and charged character, whereas silver is cool...the material of soft, tranquil design.

For Björn Weckström, a piece of jewelry is a miniature sculpture with a human background. As a sculptor he has enhanced the appreciation and respect of jewelry design as an art form in itself. He casts his jewelry models in plaster as three-dimensional forms, creating the spontaneous element of each item — a freshness that is normally only possible for unique pieces.

Finnish goldsmith and jewelry designer Pekka Hirvonen graduated from the Lahti Polytechnic Institute of Design in 1985, and served as a model goldsmith at Lapponia until becoming a designer with them in 2002. His designs are primarily based on the actual creation process: he begins with an idea in mind, and lets himself "drift along" with the thought and the material.

Pekka Hirvonen creates jewelry because the process combines craftsmanship, art, and creativity. In his opinion, a relationship must be born between his jewelry and its wearer — she should desire to wear the piece of jewelry as a part of herself, and the image she conveys. Hirvonen seeks absolute simplicity of forms, and in addition to aesthetics and craftsmanship, his work is characterized by its wearability.

Pekka Hirvonen's design is elegant, timeless, and with a message.

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