One of my favourite architects, Enrique Miralles, once said that if you leave an unfinished work-in-progress alone for long enough, it appears as if it was always supposed to be that way. The Keep table by Thörne & Johnsson expresses this notion beautifully. (As will my next two posts).
The wood is recuperated from other pieces of furniture and bound together with metal straps, so that each of the legs and beams have a different pattern. It does not have that “chunky wood” look that some other designers use when appealing to a raw aesthetic. It is fine lined, but certainly not fly weight and has the solidity of any high-end table.
The table top is another design surprise. I was trying to figure out what kind of resin it was, when I read that it was Linoleum. Don’t let memories of cheep plasticky kitchen floors put you off. This is a high quality lino that is hard and durable, resembling more a tiled surface that a flexible finish. (Remember linoleum is a natural product). Go and see it for yourself in the Sentou showroom on Boulevard Raspail.
While I was really getting into this table, I felt that if I were designing it I would be bothered by the fact that the table top didn’t fully touch touch the beams all around if you examined closely. I would also have put a slightly recessed channel for the beams all around it. Two things: a) I didn’t design it, and b) that’s akin to wishing that Tom Waits sings like a choir boy.
It is not surprising that the Swiss designer, Max Bill, who wrote a book in 1949 called “Mathematical thinking in the art of our times”, (La Pensée mathématique dans l’art de notre temps), would design a three legged table like this. Triangulation and curved surfaces are a fundamental part of his style. The Dreirundtisch coffee table is made of wood with a linoleum table-top and is currently available at the brilliantly named Kiss the Design gallery, in Lausanne. An amazing place for post war design.
