Barba Corsini was possibly not the first choice to design the furnishings for the loft space of Barcelona’s Pedrera building considering that he was a functionalist architect with ascetic Finnish leanings and the Pedrera was designed by Antoni Gaudi the most extravagant and unclassifiable of all the Spanish modernists. However this marriage of equal differentials created a range of products which escaped the confines of context and have become recognised as classics in the wider world. Powerful simplicity is an apt description when discussing the Pedrera Coffee Table. You will struggle to find any Gaudi antecedents in Corsini’s design but no matter the table is a thing of striking singular beauty in its own right. There is nothing extraneous, nothing unnecessary, it is merely a piece of ovoid glass sitting on top of three interconnected black steel triangles. It would be difficult to conceive of anything simpler, the trick though is to think of it first.
