Three Generations in One Auckland Basement: The Gidon Bing Citrus Juicer
Made the cut
The basement studio where Gidon Bing throws ceramics has held three generations of craft. His grandfather Henry Kulka designed the 1947 building on Auckland’s Hobson Bay. His grandmother ran a leatherwork workshop in that same basement, making gloves for Smith and Caughey.
Now Bing works there, applying Korean celadon techniques to objects you juice lemons with.
We scored this citrus juicer a 9 out of 10 for WOW. Here is what that number means.
The Discovery Factor
Selfridges London stocks Gidon Bing’s ceramics. Milan’s Salone del Mobile has featured his work. Habitus Living’s editor calls this exact juicer “a personal favourite.”
None of this appears in mainstream gift guides.
The gap between where this work sells and where people search for gifts is precisely what makes it a discovery.
We look for objects that prompt the question: how did you find this? A citrus juicer from a New Zealand boathouse studio, made using centuries-old Korean glazing traditions, stocked at one of London’s most selective department stores but invisible to algorithm-driven gift recommendations.
That is a 9.
Korean Celadon on Your Kitchen Counter
The crackle glaze on this juicer comes from a technique called celadon. Korean potters developed it over a thousand years ago, creating controlled networks of fine cracks in the glaze surface. Museums display the results.
Bing learned this technique during training in Central Europe and Asia, then brought it to functional kitchen objects.
The glaze darkens slightly with use. In Korean ceramic tradition, this is intentional. The patina develops over time, making each piece more distinct. A factory juicer stays the same until it breaks.
This one changes with you.
The Basement on Hobson Bay
Bing’s studio sits in the basement of a 1947 building designed by his grandfather. Henry Kulka was Adolf Loos’s partner. Arnold Schoenberg called Kulka “the favourite pupil of my dear friend Adolf Loos.” The same space later became his grandmother’s leatherwork workshop. She made gloves for Smith and Caughey, a New Zealand department store.
Three generations of making things in one basement. Architecture, leather, ceramics. The throughline is craft applied to function.
When we verified this product, we found layers of provenance that most brands manufacture through marketing. Here, the history simply exists.
Why We Trust This
No customer reviews exist for this specific product. We established trust through what we call the Brand Trust Protocol: tracking where a maker’s work appears, who endorses it, and how long they have been producing.
Gidon Bing Ceramics was founded around 2013. The work sells at Selfridges London and has featured at Milan’s Salone del Mobile. Habitus Living, Remodelista, CFile, and Design Milk have all covered the studio. For a small-batch ceramicist working from a boathouse atelier, this is significant validation.
Our Trust score of 7.5 reflects the absence of direct product reviews balanced against strong institutional endorsement. The editorial validation is real. The retail presence is verified. We are confident recommending this.
The Gift Calculation
At $45, this juicer costs roughly three times what a factory ceramic version would run. The difference: hand-thrown construction, Korean celadon glaze, a maker with museum-level technique and Selfridges-level retail presence.
The price feels like $85 because the credentials support it.
For host gifts, this solves a specific problem. Wine gets consumed. Candles burn down. Flowers wilt. This stays on the counter. Two years from now, the crackle glaze slightly darker from use, it will still be the first thing visitors notice.
We matched this to people who notice craftsmanship, photograph their kitchens, and value form alongside function. The product page has the full gift intelligence breakdown.
What the Score Captures
Our final score of 8.3 weights four dimensions. GLOW (8) covers the sculptural form and how it photographs. WOW (9) covers the discovery factor and heritage depth. MOMENT (8) covers the morning ritual and conversation it opens. TRUST (7.5) covers our verification confidence.
The WOW score carries the most weight in our methodology at 35%. For a gift, discovery matters more than almost anything else.
Finding something the recipient would never have found themselves is the entire point.
A citrus juicer from a New Zealand boathouse, made with Korean museum technique, in the same basement where modernist architecture was once designed.
That is what a 9 looks like.
