Hasta La Ideas

(Photos: Cecilia Lundgren)

Put a square of paper into our hands and we cannot help but immediately fold it into a “drinking cup.” Our love for this origami classic, seeded by a favorite middle school art teacher who was forever running short of Dixie cups (pâpier-maché puppet head making does work up quite a thirst), drew us to Swedish designer Cecilia Lundgren‘s “Vika” coffee table, which debuted this spring at the satellite fair of Milan’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile. “Vika,” the Swedish word for fold, is formed by a rectangle that has been cut in each corner and folded just so, which sounds awfully simple until you get out the scissors and commence contorting rectangles. Lundgren’s choice of white lacquered aluminum is a nod to the paper used for the earliest origami, and the table also accommodates paper in a more functional way: a space between the two table surfaces was designed to serve as a magazine rack. Stunning design and magazine storage? We’ll drink to that.