simplicity love: Element Collection, Desalto

The Element Collection of Tables explores the borders between furniture and sculpture, through clear lines, pure geometry and simplicity, even from the first charcoal sketches.

Created by Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka for Desalto, the sculptural objects impressed everyone, when presented at the 2013 Salone del Mobile in Milan earlier this year. The collection consists of several sculptural items including a dining table, low table and console table plus a chair.

Description by Tokujin Yoshioka:

“Element is a sculptural furniture collection inspired by the natural structure of crystals, adopting the random harmony and beauty of nature. The collection was a development from the process of the numerous experiments and research for the ‘Crystallized project’ initiated in 2007. Through the project, I would like to raise the question of how we could connect our lives to the future, by being exposed to the serendipitous beauty born of nature. From these experiments, Element was born from the challenge of revealing new aspects of nature and it is a sculptural form of furniture.”

Description by Desalto:

Element is a strong, poetic collection including a chair, dining tables, low tables and console tables, designed for Desalto by sensitive, visionary Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka.

The heart of the Element project lies in the single central support for the table, a metal parallelepiped that is reminiscent in its form of the minerals and quartzes found in nature, positioned at a slant, teetering between the base and the top as though almost challenging the laws of gravity. Magically suspended between earth and sky, “the mineral” gives character to a table that goes beyond the mere function of a support surface to take a prominent place as a sculpture in an environment. A project that is particularly complex from the engineering perspective, in which allDesalto’s skill and experience in the working of metals are expressed.

The Element collection offers an extensive range of items, including dining tables that are rectangular - up to three metres long - round and square in shape, low tables for beside the bed or sofa, bistro tables and a totemic chair of great character, which is also well suited to standing alone. In the colours black and white, the tables are enhanced by interesting finishes: tops with open-pore oak covering, opaque black glass, rough iron, wax-finished to bring out the imperfection of the surface.