Ionik Stool

Oeuffice is a collaboration between designers Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte (Canadian, b. 1979) and Jakub Zak (Canadian, b. 1980). The studio was founded in 2011 to develop innovative, exquisitely made objects in limited editions, inspired by visions of modern utopias. The designers, who are inspired by timeless forms and materials, incorporate a contemporary sensibility into their work.

Featuring some of the same natural materials used by ancient Romans to build classical monumental structures, Ionik Stool, together with Dorik Stool (MMA 2018.507) and Tuskan Stool (MMA 2018.509), is reminiscent of antique stone capitals and uses a formal and proportional vocabulary drawing from that of the classical architectural orders. Totemic in form, this stool projects an abstract geometric modernism in place of the elaborate carvings of the columns that inspired it. Rather than supporting a building, this stool is meant to be used within a domestic setting, as seating or a side table. The Chroma Edition of all three stools was designed as a special edition for The Met’s 2017 exhibition Ettore Sottsass: Design Radical, a variation on the previous edition commercially available. The coordinated primary color schemes of each object derive from the palettes used by Ettore Sottsass in his work from the mid to late twentieth-century.