Ingo Garbe Freehand Pipes

When Ingo Garbe started making pipes full-time in 1967, freehand pipes "Made in Germany" were still an absolute novelty. His inspiration came from the "grandmasters" of Danish classical music such as Viggo Nielsen and Ib Loran, who reinterpreted English shapes and thus triggered a landslide in the pipe world.

After studying their pipes, he naturally came to Denmark, a country he fell in love with straight away and where he settled in 1972. Since then he has been living on the small island of Laeso and making pipes that experts consider to be perfectly processed and unmistakable.

Some call Ingo a hardliner because he deliberately refrains from any application or other decoration on his pipes. Nor does he want his pipes to be associated with the word design. He himself describes his design language as classic and sees no point in developing new shapes, because in his opinion the pipe shapes have not developed further because they are perfect.

Nevertheless, one recognizes his pipes immediately, because they are not only the lived understatement, they speak to the viewer and tell of their creator.