Domesticated Brutalism

The designers themselves—Luca Pevere and Paolo Lucidi—dubbed their table for Kristalia "an artisanindustrial product". To start with, its name— Boiacca—allies the fascination and limitations of an "art gallery" type of poetic object with the design and technical features of a complex manufactured article. As Lucidi and Pevere point out, it may sound "uncouth and not terribly chic". But the name can also be misleading, because in reality this is a very stylish product, with the images of its presentation inspired by the best tradition of sophisticated and experimental design (which holds the record in the galleries). Boiacca comes from the Roman dialect word bujacca (which roughly translates as "thin broth") and is the technical term used in building to indicate a fluid cement paste for filling and finishing, similar to grout. An astute christening therefore, but a philological one too. Technically, in the Boiacca production process, the cement is moulded precisely as if it were plastic, with a clearly industrial approach that produces an almost architectural result.

With this artisan-industrial connotation, the two designers forestalled and countered those who might turn their noses up at the hybrid nature of this table, which piques and surprises both fronts: the artisan front by not explaining that any manufacturing defects and traces of manual work are actually an advantage; and the industrial one, subdued and subjugated by the processes, volumes and times involved in a "living" and uncontrollable material like cement.

Lucidi and Pevere hail here from their experience with the Aplomb cement lamp, developed in 2010 with the company Foscarini, after a few years of exercises and experimentation.

Fascinated by that monolithic power and by their acquired command of cement, they naturally began from the foundations: the legs. In the early sketches done in 2010, the leg prototype at first weighed a rather awkward ten kilograms, with its somewhat rigid and ponderous development. Today it has been whittled down to a more sculpturally slender 3.5 kilograms.

This was the semi-finished product they took to Kristalia, who confidently embraced their goal. Spurred by the same curiosity towards technology, materials and processing, Kristalia put their faith in these designers and in the happy ending which this complex (though relatively short) process promised to achieve: a long table resistant to bending stress but light enough for two people to lift. The price, too, seems reasonable, though that remains to be seen from market reactions at the Paris and Cologne furniture fairs.

The story of Boiacca reads like a positive episode to revive a disillusioned and discontented Italian design. It tells of a young company, run by young people with courage and professional farsightedness. But it also describes two firmly focused designers who espoused the whole process, devotedly tending it and departing from it only for the inevitable and due compromises with the other sides of the business and the market. Chiara Alessi (@chiaralessi)