Designer Konstantin Grcic’s Table B was this year awarded the “Red Dot: Best of the best” in one of the world’s most prestigious product competitions.
Table in aluminium wins design award
Konstantin Grcic’s Table B, an acclaimed success of Spanish Bd Barcelona Design, pushes the envelope in aluminium profiles combining function and beauty, solidity and lightness.
German designer Konstantin Grcic had a fancy for aluminium profiles. “I had been longing for years for an opportunity to work with aluminium extrusions - an industrial technology which combines superior structural properties with an elegantly sleek aesthetic,” he says. Grcic found inspiration in earlier classic works from bd – such as the Hipóstila shelf by Clotet and Tusquets – for a very thin table board in extruded aluminium.
His wing-like table seems to set a new standard in terms of high-end aluminium design. For starters, the influential Wallpaper magazine awarded Konstantin Grcic “designer of the year 2009” and in 2011, Table b was awarded the “Red Dot: Best of the best” in one of the world’s most prestigious product competitions.
This up to five metre long table, standing on solid oak, stainless steel or artificial stone, is a deceptive piece of design. Its shining and clinically smooth surface hides a complex technical development in which senior engineers have been involved.
“I wouldn’t call this table minimalist, I would rather talk about simplicity,” explains Grcic whose earlier creations have made it all the way to the permanent collections of New York’s MoMA, Paris’ Centre Georges Pompidou and Munich’s Die Neue Sammlung, among others.
Sapa had a role in the creation of this successful work of art.
Josep Maria Porqueras, at Sapa’s Application Center in Barcelona, describes the cooperation with Konstantin Grcic and the bd-team as warm and inspiring. “They came with this idea and there was very little room for compromise in terms of shapes, surface and looks,” says Porqueras.
In many ways, Table B was an exciting challenge for Sapa. The table consists of four 300 mm profiles that fit with total flatness and keep a perfect shape on sides and ends. The tuning of the extrusion was crucial to achieve a perfect finish.
Konstantin Grcic said once that his objects are constructed and not sculpted. “There is no pre-existing block but there are many pieces. That is the thread that connects all my projects:
I take one piece, then another, then another and I build something”, he said.
This time those pieces were of aluminium.
Erico Oller Westerberg
The designer, company and award
Konstantin Grcic was born in Munich in 1965 and has a Masters in Industrial Design from the Royal College of Art in London. Many of Konstantin Grcic´s products have received international design awards. (www.konstantin-grcic.com)
Bd Barcelona Design, probably the Spanish company with the highest prestige in design, was founded in 1972 originally as a vehicle for the production of items of furniture and accessories which could not be found in shops. (www.bdbarcelona.com)
Red Dot: An internationally recognised quality label for excellent design that has existed since 1955. It is awarded by the German Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen.