Marcel Breuer's S 285 table is available in various configurations
Although the demand for a closer relation between art, craft and industry dates back to the middle of the 19th century, programmatically it was implemented by Bauhaus. Founded in 1919 in Weimar, an indispensable material for Bauhaus designers from the mid-1920s was bent steel tube, an industrial material which on the one hand embraced industrial manufacturing processes and on the other had the potential to establish a formal idiom that would clean up the overloaded historical precursors, highlighting a spirit of simplicity, functionality and purism. The Bauhaus tables in particular are steeped in this spirit: featuring as they do visible constructions of bent tubular steel, often in conjunction with elements made of laminated wood, and objects which are hard to surpass in terms of minimalist reduction.
The Occasional Table was designed in 1927 and is now faithfully produced by ClassiCon
The designer and architect Marcel Breuer, who started his apprenticeship as a carpenter at the Bauhaus in the early 1920s, is inextricably associated with the Bauhaus table. In 1925 Breuer took over the management of the furniture workshop and quickly became an integral part of the institution and an artists who, before he was forced to flee to the USA in 1937, developed a large collection of tubular steel furniture, including numerous Bauhaus tables, almost all of which are produced by Thonet today and belong to the absolute classics of their era. In addition Bauhaus icons such as, for example the S 285 desk, the B 9 side tables designed as a set, and which, available in different heights, can be stacked according to the nesting table principle; or the Laccio coffee tables which Breuer designed in 1925 at the Bauhaus are now produced by Knoll International.
An historic impression of steel tune furniture
The B 97 nesting tables from Thonet have lost none of their relevance to this day
All about the tubular steel furniture from Thonet
Bibendum & Adjustable Table E 1027 from Eileen Gray
Not all so-called Bauhaus tables were designed by Marcel Breuer directly at the Bauhaus, but rather many examples were created in the spirit of the Bauhaus movement and embody the concerns of the international, today classic, modern age. A prime example of this classic modernity is, for example, the Adjustable Table E 1027 by the Irish designer Eileen Gray from 1927 - geometric shapes in the style of El Lissitzky meet functional, height-adjustable side table design. The LC10-P table from the legendary LC collection by the architects Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Periand from 1927 can also be counted among the Bauhaus tables thanks to its clear glass and steel construction.
The B 97 All Seasons collection combines classic Bauhaus design with contemporary colours and materials
Eileen Grays Adjustable Table in the black version
...The Table - The Beautiful South "This table has four sturdy legs", The Beautiful South inform us, and you think, yeah standard table (ooh-oooh), an impression reinforced as we're informed it is an object which over the years has been sat upon (ooh-oooh), wined upon (ooh-oooh), dined upon (ooh-oooh), treated like a bed (ooh-oooh) and spat upon (ooh-oooh), although honestly who spits on tables... But can tables change, can tables turn (ooh-oooh)...
...Following on from the success of smow Cologne's Passagen Design Week début in 2014 with the USM Haller exhibition Facetten, 2015 sees a presentation of tables from the German manufacturer ASCO... Established in 1998 with the aim of developing tables which radiate a timeless elegance, the ASCO collection combines table tops in a range of hardwoods with bases constructed from wood, metal or concrete to produce objects that are as domesticated as they are rustic and individual as they are universally accessible...
...As the name implies 2tables combines two tables in one object - with the top/lid raised it can be used as a desk, lower the top/lid one not only hides all evidence of work, but gains a homely wooden table - and all packaged in a delightfully formed and elegantly crafted object which is endowed with the sort of attention to detail that separates genuine design from the run of the mill tat that is often presented as design...
...As observant readers may have noticed, during our visit to the ICFF we did spend quite a lot of time complaining about the lack of tables in the press room... Magis had of course delivered tables for the press room...
