Claudia Vogel, Cartagena Console (TABLES, CHAIRS & DESKS 2024)

Photos:

Daniel Mulheran

This console typifies my design orientation: functional but unusual. In its simplest form a console is a high table, shallow in depth, with four legs. I have reinterpreted that basic form into a design with two elements that enhance its functionality and make the piece more unusual and memorable. Firstly, the design creates two levels for the table surface by the introduction of a small drawer on one side. This allows for a more stylish display of decorative items placed on the two levels. The drawer is visually balanced by the inclusion of a cubbyhole of the same size at the other end. Secondly, the legs also depart from the “usual”. At one end, a solid slab leg continues the dimensions and grain of the tabletop. On the other end is a trestle leg splayed to the width of the cubbyhole. The two legs are then braced together by a crossbar fixed with visible wedge joints. I’ve called the piece “Cartagena” after the beautiful city in Colombia, the country of my birth.

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