Bertram Safferling

Bertram Safferling is a German designer and pipe maker who has devoted his entire career to hand-shaping single briar blocks. His name is known in the German pipe community as one of the most consistent advocates of "freehand": pipes that are not bound to a serial mold but take shape according to each block's own grain pattern. His bench worked first in Stuttgart, then, after 2005, in northern Italy.

The Stuttgart Years

The maker's bench was set up in Stuttgart following his studies at an applied arts college. From the start the workshop was not a space devoted solely to pipes: records note it was a shared production space used by an industrial designer along with craftsmen who made puppets and mechanical street organs. This multi-craft arrangement was decisive in Safferling positioning his own work as a craft. The Stuttgart period lasted more than twenty-five years; the maker's style, as well as his habit of teaching in the workshop, took root during these years.