Small tables

Molteni&C is specialised in the production of high-quality furniture and furnishing accessories, the result of three elements: refined materials, cutting-edge production techniques and collaborations with some of the best designers in the world. Let's take the work of Rodolfo Dordoni as an example. The Belsize series is composed of trapezoidal, triangular and round small tables with three legs, in tapered and painted iron. The attentive observer may also recognise the same geometric attention in the Mayfair Collection, which combines simple shapes to create a new type of precious, elegant solid structure thanks to the glass top and the glossy anthracite, clay and rust finishes. Meanwhile, the When small tables are close relatives of the Wish bed and the Who chairs. This is evident in their design, which adopts the same lines as the other series. This is followed by Domino, a system of pouffes and shelving designed to allow the home-owner total freedom of composition; the supporting structure is made up of two inverted "C" shapes while the silver-plated glass mirror is designed to be fixed to the wall at the top. A development of this is Domino Next, which alternates steel, wood, stone, leather and textiles to create stylised forms that are full of character. Leaving modular products aside and exploring single pieces, we meet Teso, more like a sculpture than a small table. The ultra-light transparent glass top reveals every angle of the internal steel structure. It was designed by Foster + Partners, one of the most acclaimed architecture studios in the world, a leader in the field of integrated, sustainable design. Their technological research has also played a fundamental role in the Vicino Table, a coffee table made up of two levels (one fixed and one rotatable) that move thanks to a sophisticated mechanism concealed within the steel structure. Meanwhile, for his LessLess series, Jean Nouvel chose aluminium: originally designed for the Cartier Foundation, it is composed of minimalistic, simple tables with an extremely thin horizontal top. The same lightness is created by Vincent Van Duysen, who designed Jan by alternating metal, wood, stone and glass to form a family whose charm is difficult to equal; the rounded and convex forms of Matteo Nunziati's Trevi collection, on the other hand, recall a baroque, seventeenth-century world revisited in a modern style. From the prestigious Molteni Heritage Collection come two mid-century designer small tables by the Milanese master Gio Ponti: the first is D.555.1, with metal legs and a visible coloured grid design, while the second, D.552.2, has strikingly virtuoso proportions and alternations between glass, brass and rosewood. Simple, decisive geometric shapes can also be found in the pieces by Ron Gilad: the 45°/Tavolino series chooses to focus on the contours, while Panna Cotta appears to be born of the paradox between heavy and light, stability and vibration. This is thanks to the design, but also the use of materials such as iron and marble.