The first story Katia Langeard told me was about a tiny drop of red glaze. As a child, she had covered a ceramic ladybird in bright red, only to open the kiln and discover that almost all the colour had disappeared. One glossy drop remained. Small, unexpected and, to her, somehow full of possibilities.

That image feels like a good place to begin with Katia. Her work has been shaped by making, architecture and interiors, but also by learning to pay attention to what materials, places and accidents can reveal. She grew up in Moscow surrounded by objects made by her grandfather, a Soviet architect who also built furniture and lighting with his own hands. Years later, after moving to Europe and eventually settling in Èze, those early memories began to take on a different weight.

Today, Katia works primarily with ceramics, creating furniture, lighting and sculptural objects from her studio in the south of France. Her background in architecture and more than fifteen years in interior design still show in the way she works. She thinks about where a piece will live, how it will be used and how light will change it.

For this chapter of Makers of Atmosphere, I wanted to talk to Katia about returning to clay after so many years, the objects and visual languages we learn to understand differently once we leave home, and how the steep landscape of Èze is slowly finding its way into her work.

“I take a bulb on a long cable, close myself in a dark room and experiment with the light before the piece is finished. It becomes almost like sculpting with something invisible.” Katia Langeard

What is the first scene from your childhood that comes to mind when you think about creativity?

I remember taking ceramics classes as a child. I made a little ladybird that I was very proud of, and I planned to cover its back with a bright red glaze. Our teacher warned us that after firing, the result might not be quite what we expected.

He was right. Almost the entire thin layer of glaze disappeared, leaving only one tiny red drop. But that drop was so glossy, so beautiful, deep and mysterious. Looking at it, I somehow saw an incredible source of possibilities.

That tiny drop stayed with me. In a way, it never really left.

You also grew up surrounded by things your grandfather had made. Which object do you remember most clearly?

I remember his brass chandeliers and wall lights very clearly because I actually watched him make them. I saw him shaping sheets of metal and assembling the freshly made parts. He would explain the process to me and talk about the problems he encountered along the way.

But the object I remember most vividly is an armchair he carved from the enormous base of a tree trunk. It had a very comfortable, ergonomic seat and a low back ending in a curved metal arch. It was broad and sculptural, but also slightly magical, almost as if it had come out of an old Russian fairy tale.

Left to right: Henri Lamp and Motion Mini Sculpture by Katia Langeard. Courtesy of klangeard.com

Your grandfather’s influence is an important part of your story. What do you recognise of him in your own work today?

He passed on to me the desire to create functional, sculptural things with my own hands. But I don’t think my work follows his artistic or sculptural language directly. Perhaps what remains most strongly is his architecture.

He was a Soviet architect working during the period of Soviet modernism. Among his major projects was the Zhemchuzhina Hotel in Sochi, one of the largest hotels in the Soviet Union.

I think echoes of that architectural language can be found in my work, particularly in collections such as Bricks, Stripes and Layers. There is something about the rhythm, repetition and verticality that I recognise as part of my own visual vocabulary.

You first encountered clay as a child, then returned to it many years later. What was different the second time?

The biggest difference was scale. As a child taking ceramics classes in the Soviet Union, we had several small kilns available to us. When I returned to ceramics as an adult, I could work with a much larger kiln, large enough to fire furniture. That changes everything.

After my experience with that little red drop, I also knew that glazing was one of the most unpredictable and difficult parts of ceramics. This time I approached it much more seriously. I trained extensively in glaze making and learned how to develop my own glazes.

Now, when I open the kiln, the result is no longer simply a surprise. I can create the surface and colour I have imagined.

Clay never allows for complete control. Has a technical accident ever led you somewhere you would not have arrived deliberately?

Yes. Once I made a small test piece from an irregular scrap of clay. The shape itself didn’t matter to me at all. I was only interested in testing a glaze.

After firing, however, the surface had warped in a completely unexpected and beautiful way. That accidental deformation gave me several ideas for forms I probably would never have discovered through deliberate sketching.

That is one of the things I love about ceramics. Sometimes the material makes a decision for you.

You trained in architecture and spent many years working in interior design. What did designing spaces teach you about the objects that live inside them?

I was incredibly lucky in my interior design career. Through the studios I worked for, I had the opportunity to work alongside, at different times, designers such as Philippe Starck, Peter Marino, Brian McCarthy and John Saladino. They became my teachers in many ways. Over fifteen years, they exposed me to an extraordinary number of beautiful things and helped shape my eye.

Interior design taught me to think about colour and to imagine in advance how an object will live within a space. I remember a phrase from the interior designer Karin Blake: “Treat each room like an off-white canvas, then start painting.”

It also taught me to think about comfort at every level. Light that doesn’t hurt your eyes. A stool that is comfortable to sit on. A small table that fits naturally beside a sofa.

And it taught me to think about quality and the future life of an object. I want the pieces I make to remain relevant and loved by their owners twenty years from now.

Do you remember the first ceramic pieces that felt unmistakably yours?

Yes. The Canyon Lamp and the Layered Landscape Sconces, which I made in 2024.

At the time, I was thinking about the beautiful colour of terracotta clay while designing the interior of a bathroom for my own house. The idea for a new pair of sconces emerged naturally from the interior I was sketching.

It was one of those moments when the object and the space seemed to appear together.

You have described light as a material in its own right. How do you work with something you cannot touch?

I have now created several dozen ceramic lighting projects, so I can usually imagine quite precisely how the light will travel through an object and with what intensity, even when the piece is still just raw clay.

But when I am developing something completely new, I sometimes need to test it physically. I take a bulb on a long cable, close myself in a dark room and experiment with the light before the piece is finished.

It becomes almost like sculpting with something invisible.

You moved to Europe in 2012. Were there objects that began to mean something different once you were far from home?

I arrived in Europe with one suitcase, thinking I would stay for only a year because it was a work contract.

But Europe fascinated me, and the contract was of unlimited duration, so I continued working here. Gradually, objects that were important to me began to make their way from Russia to my new home, including several utilitarian pieces made by my grandfather in ceramics, wood and metal.

In Moscow, they had simply been functional objects. Here, away from their original context, their meaning became much larger than their practical purpose. They became links to my family, my childhood and a part of my life I had left behind.

Is there anything from Soviet visual culture that you only learned to appreciate once you had some distance from it?

When I was studying architecture, I didn’t like Soviet architecture. I was much more attracted to Western architecture, where modern construction technologies allowed architects to create truly contemporary forms. In the Soviet Union, many of those technologies were too expensive, so buildings often became very square and rectangular.

I look at it differently now. I have learned to appreciate how much architects were able to achieve despite those limitations. They had to be extremely inventive within a very restricted set of possibilities. The Moscow Gorky Academic Art Theatre is one example that comes to mind.

I have also learned to appreciate Soviet mosaics differently. Architecture, including the Moscow Metro, was often decorated with enormous, brightly coloured smalti mosaics depicting space, science and labour. When you grow up seeing them every day, you don’t necessarily notice or value them. Distance taught me to see them differently.

You now live and work in Èze. What has that landscape brought into the work?

The first thing that struck me about Èze was its vertical composition. I grew up in Moscow, in an entirely flat landscape. Èze develops upwards. From the foot of the rock to the summit, the village unfolds through a cascade of stairs and terraces.

There is also a feeling that the buildings and the surrounding rocks are made from the same material. Inspired by the natural stone of the village, I began experimenting with rough, untreated ceramic surfaces.

The Mediterranean sun, reflections from the sea and pale stone create a constantly changing play of light and shadow. That is something I want to recreate in my work.

I am also inspired by the dramatic position of the village itself. Many Provençal villages are built on hills, but Èze is exceptional. It sits on top of a nearly 430-metre-high rock overlooking the Mediterranean. That landscape inspired my Cliff Mirror.

What are you working on at the moment that feels particularly exciting?

At the moment, I am working on a new collection that I will present during my solo exhibition in Èze in March 2027.

The collection is characterised by flowing lines that intertwine with one another and by a strong sense of verticality in the compositions.

We’ve spoken about childhood memories, objects that travelled with you and places that taught you to see familiar things differently. Before we finish, I’d like to leave the practice aside for a moment and ask you one final question I always like to ask. What is something that has quietly stayed with you lately?

A new place that stayed with me is the new edition of PAD Saint-Tropez. I found it particularly interesting this year.

And as for a feeling, I recently discovered the work of Victor Brauner. There is currently a fascinating exhibition dedicated to him at Villa Paloma in Monaco, where an exceptional private collection of his work is being shown publicly for the first time.

He was an extraordinary artist who created his own legendary worlds. I left the exhibition with his imagery still quietly present in my mind.

Katia’s work seems to begin, again and again, with a second look. The architecture she dismissed as a student became more interesting once she had left Moscow. Objects made by her grandfather, once simply useful, acquired another weight in Europe. In Èze, the landscape gradually entered her work as she learned to see it more closely.

There is very little nostalgia in this. It feels closer to the slow correction of first impressions. Things are allowed to change meaning, and something familiar can return years later with an entirely different value.

For Makers of Atmosphere, I try to understand what connects a person’s work to the way they move through the world. With Katia, that atmosphere is one of measured wonder. She has spent years learning how to control materials, colour and light, yet she has never lost her curiosity for the moment when something reveals more than she expected. Perhaps that is why the second look feels so important in her work. It leaves room for things to shift over time.

Discover more about Katia Langeard at klangeard.com or follow her on Instagram: @katialangeard.

This story was created in collaboration with Katia Langeard. Interview, editing and editorial direction by Rarefied