&Tradition Asks Designers and Artists to Rethink the Archetypal Table

For its latest exhibition, Danish furniture brand &Tradition has turned its attention to the table and has gathered five international designers to create new interpretations of the humble object. On show as part of the 3daysofdesign festival currently taking place in Copenhagen, the ‘Study of a Table’ exhibition is appropriately set inside the Apollo Kantine restaurant.

Inside, you can find a table by each of the assembled studios: All the Way to Paris; Studio Raw Material; Teruhiro Yanagihara; Stellenbosch Art Foundry; and Spiritual Objects. When it came to ideating their objects, each of them have looked to their home countries of Denmark, India, Japan, South Africa and the United States for inspiration. After the exhibition closes, each table will be put on auction, with the proceeds being donated to charities chosen by the designers and studios.

For Danish-Swedish studio All the Way to Paris, a classically Scandinavian “no-nonsense” approach was taken. The studio’s founders Tanja Vibe and Petra Olsson Gendt worked with simple aluminium to create their “Table Cloth” piece, which features an aesthetic they describe as fusing “industrial expression with silky smooth tactility”.

A more literal depiction is seen on the Tulip Table, designed by US studio Spiritual Objects. Founded by LA-based artist and designer Luc Fuller, the studio produces a wide range of objects, from jewellery to homeware. Scaling up for this project, Fuller opted to use laminated plywood, steel and lacquer to layer colour upon colour to create tulip shapes that fit into one another like a puzzle.

In Teruhiro Yanagihara’s Éclair table, modernity and tradition are blended. The Japanese designer looked to both the historical and innovative aspects of Japanese design – taking cues from art, food, and objects around the home. The final form was influenced by Kamishide, which are paper objects used to decorate Japanese shrines. The tabletop is made up of several rectangles which are offset from one another, with each crafted from chestnut wood and joined through complex carpentry.

The “Don’t be a Square” table by Stellenbosch Art Foundry aims to create art objects from design pieces using the process of bronze casting. The father and son team, who create work from a micro foundry in Stellenbosch, South Africa, wanted to challenge the notion of a table conversation being dictated by seating arrangements, with its concept taking into account South Africa’s 11 languages, and its diverse culture and rich heritage. Underneath, stainless steel, aluminium and bronze cubes support a thick glass tabletop.

The final design in the exhibition comes from Studio Raw Material – whose founders Priyanka Sharma and Dushyant Bansal wanted to explore geology through their Khokar table. The studio is based in the desert plains of western India, and its direct surroundings inspired its direction. The table itself has been crafted from Dune Yellow marble and features fossilised shells and sea creatures in its surface. It is described by the studio as “a visual representation of a deep exploration into past and present linguistic implications”.

Study of a Table is on show at the Apollo Kantine in Copenhagen until 16 June, as part of the city-wide design festival, 3daysofdesign.

Elsewhere in Europe, Design Miami/Basel has recently opened the doors to its 2022 edition, bringing over 50 of the world’s leading design galleries to the Swiss city.

Apollo Kantine
Nyhavn 2
1051 Copenhagen