OVERVIEW
KUBORAUM’s core idea is not simply calling glasses ‘masks’, but extending that concept across face, space and identity
KUBORAUM began in Berlin in 2012. According to the official project history, artist, sculptor and designer Livio Graziottin and anthropologist and brand director Sergio Eusebi first met at a gallery opening in Berlin in 2009 and began the project in February 2012.
They call the products masks rather than glasses. A mask is described as something designed on the wearer’s face to heighten personality and character while also creating a sense of shelter between the individual and the outside world.
The same idea shapes the organisation. Design, image, video, installation and interior work are developed from the Berlin studio, while the objects are made through Italian artisanal production. The phrase ‘Dreamed in Berlin, Handmade in Italy’ condenses that division of roles.
This Brief looks beyond Kuboraum’s sculptural black acetate to examine how one concept—mask—connects product form, making, architecture, music, art projects and retail space.
01 · 2009 → 2012
An art project in Berlin came before the eyewear business as we now know it
Graziottin and Eusebi first met in 2009 at the opening of a mutual friend’s gallery. One came from art, sculpture and design; the other from anthropology and brand direction.
The project began in February 2012. From the outset it was closer to a creative platform spanning objects, spaces, images and communication than to a narrowly defined eyewear company.
The official history says the brand was founded in a former post office located on the border between East and West Berlin. The space first became a gallery and then an incubator for later projects.
Because eyewear was positioned inside a broader field of body, city and visual culture from the beginning, expansion into exhibitions, sound and spatial work followed naturally.
02 · MASK
The frame is treated as a small space that both expresses and protects the wearer
KUBORAUM says its masks are designed on the face to emphasize the wearer’s personality and character. The body is presented as the starting point, not merely the surface on which a pre-existing product is placed.
The company also describes the mask as shelter: a cubical room from which the wearer can look at the world through two lenses while preserving intimacy.
This helps explain why many Kuboraum frames do not try to disappear. Thick acetate, large volumes, pronounced curves and metal structures actively alter the visual presence of the face.
The aim is not simply to hide the wearer behind an object, but to use the object to reveal another aspect of the person.
03 · BERLIN SPACE
Studio, showroom and flagship share one site, making space itself part of the production system
KUBORAUM began in a former Berlin post office. The space was initially converted into a gallery and later evolved into a combined studio, showroom and flagship store.
The official project text says design, brand identity, communication, photography, video, installation and interior projects are all developed there.
The flagship is therefore not only the final stage where finished products are displayed. Objects, image-making, exhibition and architecture are produced in proximity and can shape one another.
This helps explain why KUBORAUM often calls itself a project rather than simply a brand: eyewear, space and media function as different tools for building the same world.
04 · DREAMED IN BERLIN / HANDMADE IN ITALY
Creative direction and manufacture are separated geographically but joined in one repeated sentence
Almost every KUBORAUM product page repeats the phrase ‘Dreamed in Berlin, Handmade in Italy’, making the relationship between design city and production base explicit.
The project history says Italian artisanal tradition was brought into a Berlin-based creative environment from the beginning in 2012, and describes each mask as containing traces of the artisans who worked on it and of Venetian craft history.
This differs from a simple Made in Germany or Made in Italy identity. The place where ideas are developed and the place where objects are made are treated as distinct but equally important roles.
KUBORAUM’s identity is therefore transnational by design: Berlin provides the cultural and spatial experiment, while Italian craft turns it into a physical object.
05 · ACETATE AS SCULPTURE
Acetate is treated less like a flat rim and more like a small sculptural object on the face
Thick acetate and irregular volume formed much of KUBORAUM’s early visual impact. Current models such as Q2, E21 and K26 continue to use acetate and hand-finished surfaces.
In conventional eyewear, front thickness is often read mainly as a structural requirement for holding lenses. In KUBORAUM, thickness also changes facial contour, shadow and visual weight.
Matt and polished surfaces create different reflections even within black, making texture and mass as important as colour.
This sculptural treatment directly supports the mask idea: the frame becomes an intentionally present object that reorganises the wearer’s appearance rather than disappearing into it.
06 · MATERIAL EXPANSION
The identity expands from heavy acetate into metal, mixed construction and rimless forms
KUBORAUM’s current collection architecture includes acetate, metal, acetate-and-metal, rimless, Machinery and Eyecouture and Precious Materials.
Moving into metal and rimless reduces the physical mass associated with its acetate masks, yet the same mask manifesto remains attached to those products.
This suggests that the brand identity sits above one material. The tension between lens, structure, face and presence can survive even when the heavy acetate volume disappears.
Had the original language depended only on thick black acetate, expansion would risk dilution. The broader concept of the mask allows materials to change without abandoning the project’s central idea.
07 · EYECOUTURE
The eyewear object is pushed into a more experimental territory of material and handcraft
The current collection architecture includes a dedicated category called Eyecouture and Precious Materials.
The name moves away from the ordinary optical/sunglass distinction and evokes couture as a field of labour-intensive, expressive making.
Importantly, the experimental category does not use a separate worldview. More precious or unusual materials remain inside the same mask vocabulary.
Rather than splitting the highest-expression work into a separate sub-brand, KUBORAUM treats it as a more intense layer of the same project.
08 · HAMBURGER BAHNHOF
The museum collaboration is built as an evolving permanent capsule rather than one-off merchandise
In 2025 KUBORAUM launched a capsule with Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin’s museum for contemporary art. The official text frames the collaboration around shared values of innovation, diversity and inclusivity.
The first group included two micro-metal sun masks and two acetate frames with 24-hour lenses. Colours were derived from Dan Flavin’s blue and green fluorescent installation on the museum façade.
The project was integrated into KUBORAUM’s permanent collection and is intended to evolve seasonally across established series.
The collaboration translates curatorial and architectural references into colour and model selection while leaving the underlying mask vocabulary intact.
09 · SOUND & EDITIONS
The eyewear universe expands into music, publishing and curation as an independent cultural programme
Through the Digital Sound Residency, KUBORAUM invites experimental, electronic and contemporary musicians to create exclusive soundtracks for its digital room.
Kuboraum Editions describes its approach as non-genre and continues through records, performances and curatorial projects.
The music is not merely advertising background. It is released as standalone work and connects with spaces and institutions such as Berlin Atonal and Hamburger Bahnhof.
If the mask is the project’s visual object, sound and performance function as other media through which the same cultural system can extend its sensorial range.
10 · RETAIL AS SPACE
As distribution expands, stores remain cultural and spatial expressions rather than neutral product containers
The current store locator lists KUBORAUM stores in Berlin, Milan and Rome, as well as the KUBORAUM INNERRAUM Gallery in Mexico City.
It also lists a temporary space at Dover Street Market Ginza, shop-in-shops in cities including New York, Toronto, Venice and Zurich, and a permanent KUBORAUM/INNERRAUM space at KaDeWe in Berlin opened in 2026.
The central base remains the Berlin flagship and studio at Köpenicker Straße 96, where company, creation, display and retail overlap.
Retail space therefore acts as another medium of the project. The place where masks are sold is also expected to communicate the same architectural and cultural language as the objects.
11 · ETHICS & ENVIRONMENT
The project places craft preservation and environmental responsibility inside the same self-definition
KUBORAUM explicitly describes itself as an ethical and humanistic project and connects that identity with preserving Italian craft knowledge and considering environmental impact in production.
In 2019 KUBORAUM and INNERRAUM joined Plant-for-the-Planet. The company says it pursued climate neutrality through Gold Standard-certified offsets and tree planting beginning in 2020.
The current page reports an annual 750 trees planted and a cumulative total of 3,770. These figures are best treated as KUBORAUM’s own programme reporting.
Rather than separating environmental language from its making philosophy, the project frames craft, people, place and environment as related forms of preservation.
GLANOS VIEW
A strong worldview can begin by renaming a product, but it lasts only when product, space and behaviour keep proving the word
Calling glasses ‘masks’ would not be enough on its own. What makes KUBORAUM distinctive is that thick acetate and rimless structures, the Berlin studio and Italian craft, museum collaborations and sound projects all continue under the same conceptual umbrella.
When a single word begins to influence product form, retail space, content and collaboration, it functions more like a design principle than a slogan.
The stronger the worldview becomes, however, the more the physical eyewear must justify it through wearability and manufacturing quality. KUBORAUM’s repeated emphasis on Italian handcraft and diverse structures gives the concept material support.
Memorable brand language is therefore created not by one unusual sentence, but by making the same idea tangible across many points of contact.
BRAND PROFILE
Brand Profile
- Project start
- February 2012 · Berlin
- Creative direction
- Livio Graziottin · Sergio Eusebi
- First meeting
- 2009 · gallery opening in Berlin
- Product term
- ‘Mask’ rather than glasses
- Design / making
- Dreamed in Berlin · Handmade in Italy
- Berlin base
- Former post office converted into studio · showroom · flagship
- Current structures
- Acetate · metal · mixed construction · rimless · precious materials
- Cultural projects
- Kuboraum Editions · Digital Sound Residency · Hamburger Bahnhof collaboration
SOURCES
Sources & References
The 2009 meeting, February 2012 project start, former-post-office Berlin space, roles of Graziottin and Eusebi and the Italian-making philosophy are based on KUBORAUM’s official Project materials.
The mask language—personality, protection, shelter and the cubical-room metaphor—and the phrase ‘Dreamed in Berlin / Handmade in Italy’ are repeated across current official collection pages.
Current product examples use only materials, dimensions and handcrafted-finishing descriptions published on KUBORAUM’s own pages; undisclosed manufacturing details are not inferred.
Metal, Rimless, Machinery and Eyecouture and Precious Materials are taken from the current official collection taxonomy.
The Hamburger Bahnhof section follows the official description of a 2025 ongoing capsule using colour references from Dan Flavin’s museum installation and integrated into KUBORAUM’s permanent collection.
Digital Sound Residency and Kuboraum Editions are described according to their official programme statements without claiming a direct functional relationship to eyewear.
Current stores, shop-in-shops and the KaDeWe space come from Store Locator and Contacts; climate-neutrality, offsetting and planting figures are treated as KUBORAUM’s own programme claims from its Plant-for-the-Planet page.
- KUBORAUM · PROJECT2009 meeting, February 2012 project start, former-post-office Berlin space, creative direction and Italian craft structure
- KUBORAUM · OPTICAL MASKMask philosophy, protection and shelter, designed on the wearer’s face, Dreamed in Berlin / Handmade in Italy
- KUBORAUM · ACETATECurrent acetate collection and recurring mask manifesto
- KUBORAUM · METALCurrent metal collection
- KUBORAUM · RIMLESSCurrent rimless collection
- KUBORAUM · MACHINERYCurrent Machinery family across metal and rimless forms
- KUBORAUM · EYECOUTUREEyecouture and Precious Materials category
- KUBORAUM · Q2 BASECurrent acetate Q2 with handcrafted finishing and dimensions
- KUBORAUM × HAMBURGER BAHNHOFPermanent capsule with Berlin’s contemporary-art museum and Dan Flavin-derived palette
- KUBORAUM · DIGITAL SOUND RESIDENCYExperimental and contemporary music residency
- KUBORAUM · EDITIONSNon-genre curatorial manifesto and editions programme
- KUBORAUM · STORE LOCATORCurrent stores and shop-in-shop network
- KUBORAUM · CONTACTSBerlin flagship and studio at Köpenicker Straße 96
- KUBORAUM · PLANT-FOR-THE-PLANETCompany sustainability programme and offset/tree-planting claims