06. November 2008.

The Gömböc is the first homogeneous object which has one stable and one unstable equilibrium point, thus two equilibria altogether. It may be proven that no object with less than two equilibria exists. However we place the Gömböc on a surface, it always returns to its stable equilibrium point; to do this, it does not require any additional parts; this characteristics is attributable exclusively to the special shape. The significance of the invention of the Gömböc – and the fact that its inventors are Hungarians– may be most comparable to the Rubik cube. In 2007 the New York Times Magazine voted it as one of the seventy most interesting inventions of the year. Its fame reached every continent. It was presented on five of the world’s ten busiest web portals, while it was displayed on all of China’s five busiest portals. The web site of the invention (www.gomboc.eu) registered over 5,800,000 visitor hits from over 5000 cities of 151 countries and from over 1000 universities.

As the art director of the world renowned and acknowledged player of handcrafted porcelain making, Herend Porcelain Manufactory, Pálma Babos began a cooperative effort with the inventors of the Gömböc. Herend’s misson is to instil vitality in and support the reputation of Hungarian artistic and scientific life by way of harnessing opportunities it is presented with. Additionally, Herend considers the transplantation of famous shapes into porcelain a challenge. The Gömböc shape, as an independent design object, has also come to life; numerous design magazines have presented it, domestically and abroad alike. Herend Porcelain Manufactory decided to try to create it out of the white gold, to fashion the shape of the world renowned invention — hitherto made of six different materials — from yet a seventh.

The Herend Porcelain Gömböc, as the Gömböc that was made of the 7th material, seeks to exist as a sculpture, fundamentally a shape in space, and its purpose is not to reproduce the invention out of a homogeneous material. From a functional perspective, it is first and foremost a decoration which my also be used for the purpose of meditation. It does not desire to achieve the mathematical definition of the Gömböc (in this respect it is a “pseudo-Gömböc”); rather, it wishes to represent the Gömböc shape as a mobile sculpture. The Herend Porcelain Gömböc is the first functional, non-homogeneous Gömböc. Only Herend was capable of manufacturing the hollow porcelain Gömböc, giving the invention a potential new research, functionality and manufacturing direction. Over the course of manufacturing, the Herend masters have discovered countless other uses, which project exciting product development projects for the Herend workshops as well.

The first debut of the painted Herend porcelain Gömböc took place on October 28, 2008 at the conference of The Boston Consulting Group, at the Gresham Palace. The guest of honour of the conference was inventor Gábor Domokos, who introduced the Herend Gömböc in person.