Decastelli Sunrise

In its creative exploration of industrial processes, Italian furniture manufacturer DeCastelli transforms brass, copper, stainless steel and other metals and alloys into eye-catching cabinets, cocktail tables, chairs and even decorative vases, bringing out the design potential of each raw material with its decades of expertise.

Adhering to what the brand calls "hard couture," DeCastelli positions metalworking as an art form. The brand, with four generations of ironworkers at its core, was established in 2003. DeCastelli works with designers and studios such as Marco Pisati, Emilio Nanni and IvDesign to create wondrously sculptural pieces that are at once imposing in their rawness and delicate in what is often an ode to natural forms. The tall metal storage cabinets of the Ripple collection, for example, feature concave doors that mirror the surface of a lake or a river while the spiraling etchings that adorn the iron and copper surfaces of the Syro coffee tables, with their tree branch-like supports, similarly evoke the movement of water.

Every piece of the company's furniture is made at the DeCastelli headquarters in the northern Italian commune of Crocetta del Montello, where metal and its potential ties all of the designs together — even upholstered pieces like sofas and ottomans feature brass bases and sophisticated brushed stainless steel embellishments.

DeCastelli has found great success in recent years partly due to collaborations with well-known brands and designers. At the Geneva International Motor Show in 2019, the company partnered with Maserati to fashion sheet metal into the shape of the Quattroporte Maserati dashboard. In 2021, DeCastelli collaborated with Adriano Design on a mobile copper liquor cabinet called the Barista. A few months later, it unveiled a collection of storage pieces called Marea with design studio Zanellato/Bortotto.

DeCastelli has also recently opened a new showroom in the historic city center of Milan. The space was designed by Cino Zucchi Architetti, a leading European design studio, to showcase the company's furniture and metalworking expertise.

On 1stDibs, find DeCastelli storage cabinets, tables, decorative objects and more.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.

As a practical focal point in your living area, antique and vintage coffee tables and cocktail tables are an invaluable addition to any interior.

Low tables that were initially used as tea tables or coffee tables have been around since at least the mid- to late-1800s. Early coffee tables surfaced in Victorian-era England, likely influenced by the use of tea tables in Japanese tea gardens. In the United States, furniture makers worked to introduce low, long tables into their offerings as the popularity of coffee and “coffee breaks” took hold during the late 19th century and early 20th century.

It didn’t take long for coffee tables and cocktail tables to become a design staple and for consumers to recognize their role in entertaining no matter what beverages were being served. Originally, these tables were as simple as they are practical — as high as your sofa and made primarily of wood. In recent years, however, metal, glass and plastics have become popular in coffee tables and cocktail tables, and design hasn’t been restricted to the conventional low profile, either.

Visionary craftspeople such as Paul Evans introduced bold, geometric designs that challenge the traditional idea of what a coffee table can be. The elongated rectangles and wide boxy forms of Evans’s desirable Cityscape coffee table, for example, will meet your needs but undoubtedly prove imposing in your living space.

If you’re shopping for an older coffee table to bring into your home — be it an antique Georgian-style coffee table made of mahogany or walnut with decorative inlays or a classic square mid-century modern piece comprised of rosewood designed by the likes of Ettore Sottsass — there are a few things you should keep in mind.

Both the table itself and what you put on it should align with the overall design of the room, not just by what you think looks fashionable in isolation. According to interior designer Tamara Eaton, the material of your vintage coffee table is something you need to consider. “With a glass coffee table, you also have to think about the surface underneath, like the rug or floor,” she says. “With wood and stone tables, you think about what’s on top.”

Find the perfect centerpiece for any room, no matter what your personal furniture style on 1stDibs. Browse a vast selection of antique, new and vintage coffee table and cocktail tables today.