STOFF

Twenty years before the STOFF Nagel candle holder ever saw the light of day, an idea glistened within the Nagel family. They were deeply affected by the recent end of World War II and the repeated bombings that had largely leveled the nearby city Cologne to the ground.

In an effort to create a new livelihood, the four Nagel brothers were sent out into the darkness of night to collect empty American cartridge cases. The brass cartridge cases were plentiful enough for their blacksmith father to transform the war remnants into ashtrays, vases and candle holders.

Merely 20 years after the end of the war, Hans Nagel met the architect and artist Werner Stoff in the design community of Cologne. Nagel had long been interested in making beautiful things for the dinner table, while Stoff had been working as a performing artist and had developed his own signature line of rounded objects “without corners.” Their shared loved for good design and passion for art sparked a creative match.

Nagel told Stoff that he was struck by an idea during a skiing vacation in The Alps where an accidental backward tumble forced him to break the fall with his hand, thus creating the finest three finger-holes in the snow. The perfect holes brought a candle holder to mind—a beautiful, sculptured and simple candle holder with room for three slim sticks.

It was in this melting pot of impressions and cultural shifting that the STOFF Nagel candle holder was born.