UC57
old french oak beams and travertine stone
160x50x45 cm
Year built
2023
Function
Aux Table
Status
On Display
Stone and wood get along. We had proved it in a couple of earlier projects where stone played the role of top — a continuous slab over wood. But there was an idea that had been on Iñigo's mind for a while: seeing them face to face in solid form. Block against block. A duel between titans of nature.
The workshop next door, a reference stone supplier, had just brought in a CNC machine that can do everything — "a million euros" of precision capable of machining stone with an accuracy that until then had been unthinkable. And then came Casa Decor 2023: a stone company and one of the best interior design studios in the country wanted something with rock. The perfect occasion to put it into practice.
Iñigo started drawing. Many sketches, you go first I'll follow, move aside I'm in charge, let me through you won't even notice. And at the end of the day, there was no fight — there was a dance.
The final design doesn't pit the two materials against each other but fuses them: from above, a rectangular block in two colours, white travertine followed by the warm blonde of oak. From the front, a perfect square. Viewed from the side, something unexpected happens — on the interior face of the joint between the two materials, a wide frame is drawn, and somewhere within that frame the transition takes place. Stone takes the form of wood. Wood takes the form of stone. Neither could exist in this piece without the other.
The rock was machined by the million-euro machine. The wood we sculpted by hand. And when you see the finished piece, it is remarkable how two materials made by such opposing processes manage to disguise each other so completely.
Peace and harmony in this sweet symphony of 200 kg. UC57 works equally as a bench or as a side table.
