Cassina

636 ELLING BUFFET

Designer Gerrit Thomas Rietveld

Represents, with the Red and Blue, the essence of the new spatial concept of neoplasticism. A key benchmark in the establishment of the Modern style, this sideboard, designed in 1919, was originally used in the model home designed by J.P Oud for Spargen, Rotterdam, and in various interior design projects, including the project for P.J Elling. The original model was destroyed in a fire and was only rebuilt under the supervision of the designer in 1951 for an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Today, Cassina produces this storage unit for the first time in its historic carpentry in Meda, in collaboration with the designer’s heirs. The pure lines of the structure create a grid based on a structural core to which surfaces, drawers and storage units are added. The model is influenced by F.L. Wright and the Anglo-Japanese art of E.W. Godwin, particularly as regards the accentuated horizontal surfaces, which are offset by the vertical supports which form a grid from which the storage compartments are hung. The supporting grid, virtually continuous, has contrasting sections of slats that exalt their dynamism towards the exterior.