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Metafora Coffee Table

Lella & Massimo Vignelli - 1979

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Ever since it was introduced at the Salone del Mobile in Milan in 1979, the Metafora coffee table by the iconic design duo of Lella and Massimo Vignelli, has been praised for its aesthetics and for the choice of its forms and materials. For like in all of their projects no detail is coincidental and everything is linked by a "fil rouge" of meanings and historical references.

The four forms of the Euclidean geometry, the cube, the cylinder, the sphere and the pyramid, made of four types of stone, represent the bases of the table which is completed by a big sheet of transparent glass. The four elements are independent and can be positioned freely, which means that the configuration is up to the user and is never entirely final. Each table then becomes unique yet never loses its original identity.

(The table is either available with all 4 forms in the same type of stone or in a predefined combination: white Carrara marble pyramid, black Marquina marble cube, Travertine cylinder, Rasotica marble sphere)

"I like design to be semantically correct, syntactically consistent, and pragmatically understandable. I like it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all timeless." - Massimo Vignelli

Massimo Vignelli was born in Milan in 1931, he studied architecture in Milan and in Venice.

From 1957 to 1960, Vignelli visited America on a fellowship. In 1960 he opened Studio Vignelli of Design and Architecture in Milan together with Lella Vignelli. In 1965 he was the co-founder as well as the Design Director of the Unimark International Corporation.

He returned to New York in 1966 to start the New York branch of this company which quickly became, in scope and personnel, one of the largest design firms in the world. The firm went on to design many of the world's most recognizable corporate identities, including that of American Airlines (which forced him to incorporate the eagle, Massimo is always quick to point out). Vignelli designed the iconic signage for the New York City Subway system during this period, and the intriguing but controversial 1970s-80s map of the system.

Lella Vignelli was born in Udine, Italy, in 1934. She received a degree from the School of Architecture, University of Venice, and became a registered architect in Milan in 1962. In 1958, she received a tuition fellowship as a special student at the School of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. In 1959 Ms. Vignelli joined Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Chicago, as junior designer in the interiors department. The following year, with Massimo, she established the Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture in Milan.

Their work includes graphic and corporate identity programs, publishing design, systems of signs, exhibitions, furniture and interiors, product design for both American and European companies and institutions.

The Vignelli’s work has been published and showed all over the world and is part of permanent collections of several museums, such as: the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art NY, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design NY, Musee des Art Decoratives in Montreal, Die Neue Sammlung Museum in Munich, etc

Among many other awards, in 2003 Lella and Massimo Vignelli received the National Design Lifetime Achievement Award.

Martinelli Luce was founded in 1950 thanks to the intuition and the desire of Elio Martinelli to build his own lighting fixtures. Martinelli began to create a vast production of lamps for interiors, with more and more attention to domestic use. Inspired by nature and geometry, Martinelli creates functional lighting fixtures, highly innovative lighting design and products with materials according to their intrinsic characteristics.

The collection includes Italian lightings of the 1960s and 1970s that have marked the history of design. Some of these lightings, along with others like the Pipistrello and the Ruspa, designed by architect Gae Aulenti, are kept in the most important design museums.

Emiliana Martinelli, who heads the company for many years, now joined by her son Marco, carries on the design inspired by the same principles of her father.

Coffee table

Base in geometrical shaped solid natural stone, top in glass 2cm thick

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SPECIFICATIONS

Width 120cm, depth 120cm, height 22cm
Note: this product is HEAVY and FRAGILE, please make adequate arrangements for the reception, or use our professional "white glove" delivery service

Made in Italy

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