Table en Forme Libre in Wood by Charlotte Perriand for Cassina

Table designed by Charlotte Perriand in 1959. Relaunched by Cassina in 2011. Manufactured by Cassina in Italy. Charlotte Perriand started work on the tables en forme libre in 1938. Originally intended for her own atelier in the Montparnasse area of central Paris, they went into production courtesy of Galerie Steph Simon at the end of the 1950s. All rounded edges, and asymmetrical lines, these tables are perfectly suited to accommodating up to eight guests in small spaces. The table has three legs: one is oval with a wider footprint, the other two are smaller and are cylinder-shaped. In 2011, Cassina re-issued this piece, reducing the width of the legs to offer more space and allow guests to sit closer to each other on convivial occasions. The table-top is composed of wooden staves that slot into each other, the joins being seen at the ends, testifying to the Cassina company’s exceptional carpentry skills; any variations in the wood are part of the very nature of the raw material and serve to highlight its inherent beauty. Production delay: 8-9 weeks Important information regarding images of products: Please note that some of the images show other colors and variations of the model, these images are only to present interior design proposals. The item that is selling is on the first image. Important information regarding color(s) of products: Actual colors may vary. This is due to the fact that every computer monitor, laptop, tablet and phone screen has a different capability to display colors and that everyone sees these colors differently. We try to edit our photos to show all of our products as life-like as possible, but please understand the actual color may vary slightly from your monitor About the designer: Charlotte Perriand full membership of that avant-garde cultural movement which, from the first decades of the 20th century, brought about a profound change in aesthetic values and gave birth to a truly modern sensitivity towards everyday life. In this context, her specific contribution focuses on interior composition, conceived as creating a new way of living, still today at the heart of contemporary lifestyle. In the sphere of 20th century furnishing history, the advent of modernity made possible the entrepreneurial audacity of this true reformer of interior design. At the beginning of her professional career she was acclaimed by critics for her Bar under the roof, exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in 1927 and constructed entirely in nickel-plated copper and anodized aluminium. In the same year, when she was just twenty-four years old, she began a decade-long collaboration with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, at the famous design studios at 35, rue de Sèvres in Paris. Her presence in the Le Corbusier studio is visible in all the furnishings designed with him and with Pierre Jeanneret: and so Charlotte Perriand becomes a cornerstone in the reformation project promoted by the architect, adding a distinct dimension of humaneness to the often cold rationalism of Le Corbusier. In her creations she manages to animate the fundamental substance of daily life with new aesthetic values: in particular her talent and intuition in the discovery and use of new materials manifest themselves to their full extent. The ten-year long collaboration with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, and her Japanese experience, represent periods of intense creative effervescence in the life of the artist. During her long stay in the Far East (‘40-‘46), she reveals her artistic talent to the full, through a reinterpretation of the reality of life to echo both tradition and modernity. By way of example, worthy of mention are the furnishings produced using traditional bamboo processing techniques, capable of enhancing the new forms already experimented using steel-tubing. After her work as a professional, she concentrates on a series of original and balanced productions, commissioned by top-level authorities and leading companies of the calibre of Air France, and by a number of foreign organizations, authenticating the fame she had by now gained on the international scene. About the manufacturer: In a continuing dialogue between past, present, and future, Cassina has created the I Maestri collection, revisiting furnishing designs by the twentieth century’s best-known architects, including Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, Franco Albini, Frank Lloyd Wright and Marco Zanuso. While the designs and functional concepts have been precisely preserved, the models have been manufactured using evolved technology. This is also the company that has manufactured iconic pieces of contemporary design from the 1950s to the present day, ideated by some of the most important international designers. Today Cassina continues to look to the future of design with audacious, passionate curiosity and an open, holistic approach. It affirms its exclusive ability to furnish a home’s living and dining spaces completely and iconically with The Cassina Perspective: a concept, a philosophy, an informed, futuristic thought. A detailed, expansive horizon of combinations; when placed together, the products have an innovative soul and the modern icons create authentic, welcoming, personal atmospheres involved in a conversation dominated by a code of design excellence, formal sensitive awareness, solidity and cultural authority.