Woodview Side Table

• Prize
  Winner in Other Tables
• Company/Firm
  Ali Robinson
• Designer
  Ali Robinson
• Other Credit
  Weber Industries: weberindustries.com
• Location
  London
• Project Date
  2021
• Project Link
  view
• Web URL
  view

Call me a Luddite, but this is as much a piece against our soundbite, short attention span culture, as it is a celebration of the act of reading a physical book - something that asks for slow and considered concentration.

Books are vessels that hold our thoughts and ideas and this table aims to prop those up. Although refined, a book is, as any book-binder will attest, very clever in its simple construction. It has two elements: sewn pages and a cover. I wanted my reading book table to have the same simplicity - just two elements that show how it is constructed - the black steel as the cover and the brass as the sewn pages - the brass tab cutting into the black steel as if the text leans into and bites the book’s structural cover.

Originally designed to sit between a reading chair and a raked loft ceiling, its sloped sides followed suit and so required little upturned feet to hold the books in place. Whilst reminding me of the shape of my own outstretched legs and angled feet whilst reading, the form alludes strongly to a lectern - an object with obvious associations of literary importance.

Bio
I studied Fine Art at The Ruskin, Oxford University, where I predominately made paintings before taking up a number of artist-in-residency posts in which my work developed into performance, installation-based sculpture and video. I continue to make art every day. I co-founded Robinson van Noort, an interior architecture practice where as principal designer I head up the design of all bespoke fabrications. It is from this practice that Ali Robinson Furniture has evolved.

Other prizes
This is my first competition.