Furniture designer. Ali Robinsons work is informed by a variety of - PDF document

Furniture designer.

“Ali Robinson’s work is informed by a variety of infmuences: the creative polymath studied fjne art, before setting up the architecture and interior design fjrm Robinson van Noort with his wife in 2001. Their studio fmourished, becoming known for its period interiors with contemporary touches. Robinson’s fjrst foray into furniture is no different.” Holly Patrick - Wallpaper* “Ali Robinson, one-time rackets world doubles champion-turned- designer, has served an ace.” Nathalie Wilson - The World of Interiors 04 06 06 07 At work with: Ali Robinson Kynance Cove, Cornwall Working with Specialist Makers The collection: Kynance MADE IN LONDON, UK WWW.ALIROBINSON.COM

AT WORK WITH: Ali Robinson In 2001 Ali Robinson co-founded Robinson van Noort, an architectural and interior design practice. He studied Fine Art at The Ruskin, Oxford University. He predominately made paintings before taking up a number of artist-in-residency posts where his work developed into performance, installation-based sculpture and video. Ali’s practice as a designer and artist has always involved a fundamental connection and fascination in games. He is a gifted sportsman having played a number of games to national level and becoming World Rackets Doubles Champion in 2005. His art in particular touches on his interest in how sport can be a powerful metaphor, how it can prepare us for all sorts of challenges, fjnancial and socio-political and how practice and rehearsal readies us for performances. It is this unusual mix of love and interest in design, art and games that infmuences his fjrst collection of furniture, Kynance, launched in 2017. The 17-piece collection comprises of a series of vitrines and tables, along with a selection of mirrors and consoles, a sideboard and a family ruler that records the height of growing children. 04 ALI ROBINSON

WORKING WITH: Specialist Makers Through his work at Robinson van Noort, Ali has spent more than 15 years nurturing relationships with specialist makers around the UK, from KYNANCE COVE cabinetmakers to glass and metal manufacturers. KYNANCE Cornwall Ali has created the furniture collection with these specialists working in timber, brass, bronze, Ali’s furniture collection Kynance, patinated steel and vitreous enamel. It is this part named after a picturesque bay in of the design and making process that gives Ali Cornwall where the designer spent the most pleasure, where designer and maker many of his childhood summers, is allow time to experiment, test and push standard as much inspired by his early life as practices and processes together. an artist as by his years designing bespoke furniture for Robinson van Noort’s residential clients. 08 16 26 32 Vitrines Tables Consoles Other items 06 ALI ROBINSON

Vitrines Ali fjrst began using the patinated steel with his vitrine series. The idea for the vitrines came from reading ‘The Hare with the Amber Eyes – A Hidden Inheritance’, by Edmund de Waal. ‘The Hare with the Amber Eyes – a Hidden Inheritance’, by Edmund de Waal is a tragic story that centres on an object of desire and keepsake; it touches on love, pleasure and exquisite craftsmanship. It describes the glazed cabinets that housed Japanese netsukes or keepsakes that moved around the world from owner to owner over the last 200 years. It made him consider how people spent their time discovering, sourcing, owning, inheriting and cherishing artefacts, and how the examination of the making process itself would afgect their opinions on how they value and measure things. 09

VITRINE: Ashorne 800 W 500 D 2200 H patinated black steel/ perforated metal/ highly polished steel/ glass/ VITRINE: Clarendon Ali studied a variety of vitrines and enjoyed looking at the play of light through the glass and the refmections that bounced ofg polished surfaces and through perforated metal. 2700 W 430 D 2000 H patinated black steel/ perforated metal/ He experimented in the workshop with the patination highly polished steel/ glass/ of many types of metals, polishing and dipping, and sprayed metal/ worked with enamel specialists to mix unusual portions of pigment to achieve a delicate ceramic-like surface quality. The process involved balancing a desire to maintain a handmade feel with subtle imperfections, notches and variable patination in the metalwork, with the functional necessities to produce a simple, elegant piece that could be used daily. 10 ALI ROBINSON 11

VITRINE: VITRINE: Symonds Barnsbury 960 W 430 D 2250 H 700 W 430 D 1950 H patinated black steel/ patinated black steel/ perforated metal/ perforated metal/ highly polished steel/ highly polished steel/ glass/ glass/ sprayed metal/ sprayed metal/ BESPOKE Vitrines All of the 4 vitrines can be specifjed in bespoke sizes and colourways. 12 ALI ROBINSON 13

Vitrines 2700W 430D 2000H 960W 430D 2250H Clarendon - Double Vitrine Symonds - Vitrine 800W 500D 2200H 700W 430D 1950H Ashorne - Vitrine Barnsbury - Vitrine 14 ALI ROBINSON

Dining Tables Ali has designed two dining tables – Kynance, which is fjxed, and Chilworth, which is extendable. The form of the dining table is inspired by Finn Juhl’s Judas Table (1948) with its pared back celebration of rosewood and gentle touch of silver decoration. 16 ALI ROBINSON

DINING TABLE: Chilworth 2550/3550 W 950/1200 D 750 H smoked eucalyptus veneer or quarter sawn fjgured sycamore or dyed tulip wood/ Chilworth was conceived from a commission to design an brass or bronze or blackened brass inner and outer ellipse rim/ patinated molten brass legs/ extending dining table to seat 14. The relative tightness of the space led Ali to conceive an elliptical design with a brass rim. An inner ellipse creates a table for intimate dining and a larger ellipse, made from 4 extendable leaves, creates a table that can seat 14. These two difgerent shaped ellipses produce a foreshortening depending on where you sit and creates beautiful negative spaces between the inner and outer rim. 18 ALI ROBINSON 19

DINING TABLE: CONFERENCE TABLE: Kynance Preshute 2000/2300/2600/3550 W 950/1000/1050/1200 D 750 H 4200 W 1200 D 750 H smoked eucalyptus veneer or quarter sawn fjgured sycamore smoked eucalyptus veneer or quarter sawn fjgured sycamore or dyed tulip wood/ or dyed tulip wood/ brass or bronze or blackened brass inner and outer ellipse rim/ brass or bronze or blackened brass inner and outer ellipse rim/ patinated molten brass legs/ patinated molten brass legs/ One of Robinson van Noort’s existing corporate clients requested a number of conference and meeting tables in both smoked eucalyptus and sycamore. Preshute is a revision of Chilworth, Ali’s extendable dining table. The elliptical form was stretched to 4.2 meters and the ends altered to accommodate extra space for laptops and notepads. Furthermore the table was adapted to encompass cable management requirements with an IT undercarriage and two gullwing-like surface grommets. 21

DINING TABLE: Kynance II 2000/2300/2600/3550 W 950/1000/1050/1200 D 750 H dyed tulip wood veneer/ blackened brass rim and discs/ Kynance II was inspired by a very particular dyed tulip patinated steel legs/ wood. When combined with blackened brass details, the timber takes on a feeling of fossilised stone or patinated metal, evident into rest of his collection. The legs are over- sailing rectangles arranged to form a hexagonal shape. The intersection of the legs align with the blackened brass discs. They create a sweeping helical form which plays with the adjacent and similar looking natural dark knots evident within the veneer. 22 ALI ROBINSON 23

Tables 2000/2300/2600/3550W 2550/3550W 950/1200D 750H 950/1000/1050/1200D Chilworth - Dining Table 750H Kynance - Dining Table 4200W 1200D 750H Kynance II - Dining Table Preshute - Conference Table 24 ALI ROBINSON

Consoles Ali’s consoles looks at how a form can be both symmetrical and cockeyed to suggest a precarious stability. The Lillian console exaggerates this cockeyedness by expressing the leg arrangement position on the marble top with inlaid pewter discs. As with his dining table, Kynance II, this continues Ali’s interests in how inlaid marks can accentuate knots and subtle variations in natural materials and how the hand-made, with its gentle ‘imperfections’, can highlight both the beauty of the material and the skill and ambition of the making. 26 ALI ROBINSON

CONSOLE: CONSOLE: Lillian Tranquil Vale 1640 W 330 D 790 H 1700 W 300 D 690 H honed nero marquina marble top/ smoked eucalyptus veneer with brass rim/ pewter disc/ or quarter sawn fjgured sycamore veneer with bronze rim/ patinated steel legs/ patinated steel legs/ BESPOKE Consoles All consoles can be specifjed in bespoke sizes. 29

Consoles 1640W 330D 790H 1700W 300D 690H Lillian - Console Tranquil Vale - Console 30 ALI ROBINSON