
Rare Granite 'Jumbo' Cocktail Table by Gae Aulenti for Knoll International, 1980
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Rare Granite 'Jumbo' Cocktail Table by Gae Aulenti for Knoll International, 1980

About
Details
- CreatorGae Aulenti (Designer),Knoll (Maker)
- Design
- DimensionsHeight: 14.25 in. (36.2 cm)Width: 44.5 in. (113.03 cm)Depth: 44.5 in. (113.03 cm)
- StyleModern (Of the Period)
- Materials and TechniquesGranite,Polished
- Place of OriginUnited States
- Period1960-1969
- Date of Manufacture1980s
- ConditionExcellent "mint" showroom condition. No chips, no cracks, no scratches, no flaws... showroom ready.
- Seller LocationLos Angeles, CA
- Reference Number1stDibs: LU1330220193392
About the Design
Jumbo Coffee Table
About the Designer
Gae Aulenti
The Italian architect and designer Gae Aulenti will forever be best remembered for her work with museums, in particular her 1980–86 renovation of a Beaux Arts Paris train station to create the galleries of the Musée d’Orsay. Aulenti — whose first name, short for Gaetana, is pronounced “guy” — should also be recalled for her tough intellectual spirit and for working steadily when few women found successful architectural careers in postwar Italy.
After she graduated from the Milan Polytechic in 1954, Aulenti opened an architectural office. She also joined the staff of the progressive architectural magazine Casabella, whose editorial line was that the establishment, orthodox modernism of Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus, had outlived it usefulness. When their movement for fresh approaches to architecture and design received a sympathetic hearing, Aulenti found patrons — most prominently Gianni Agnelli, of Fiat, who later employed her to renovate the Palazzo Grassi in Venice for use as an arts exhibition space.
Commissions for showrooms and other corporate spaces brought Aulenti to furniture design. She felt that furniture should never dominate a room. Her chairs and sofas — low-slung, with rounded enameled metal frames and ample seats — and tables, particularly her 1972 marble Jumbo coffee table for Knoll, project solidity and sturdiness. In lighting design, however, Aulenti is bravura. Each work has a marvelous sculptural presence. Pieces such as her Pipistrello table lamp and Quadrifoglio pendant are a perfect marriage of organically shaped glass and high-tech fixtures. Others have a futuristic elegance — and some even have a touch of personality. Aulenti’s Pileino and La Ruspa table lamps each look almost like little robots. Her lighting pieces are an artful grace note in the career of a woman who believed in strength.
Automaton is the premier source for early-production originals of hard-to-find 20th-century designs and functional art, serving a range of clients, from celebrities and interior designers to aficionados with modest budgets. Its 20,000-square-foot Los Angeles space is packed with rare examples of designs from a large repertoire of such designers as Philip and Kelvin LaVerne, Vladimir Kagan, Eero Saarinen, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Jorge Zalszupin, Sergio Rodrigues and Giuseppe Scapinelli.
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