Milan 2016: designer Ini Archibong has based the coloured glass legs of his Galilee and Orion tables on mythological characters and biblical stories (+ slideshow).
The tables, which are both made from a combination of solid marble and coloured glass legs, were on show at the Salone Satellite exhibition during this year's Milan design week.
When designing the tables, Switzerland-based Archibong – who studied his masters degree at ÉCAL – was influenced by fantasy books he read as a child.
"The many hours of my youth spent escaping beyond the looking glass, a witness to heroic deeds and fantastical landscapes, have shaped who I am," he told Dezeen. "A common theme within fantasy stories is the escape to a world beyond."
This fantastical element is what Archibong based the pink- and blue-coloured glass table legs on, and used the colours to create a "magical experience".
"With my desire to evoke a dreamlike experience, I decided that I had the opportunity with blown glass to create illusions of fragility, as well as using transparency and colour to create a magical experience," he said.
Although it was invented in the Roman era, coloured glass has recently seen a resurgence among designers such as Patricia Urquiola, who used iridescent glass to create a furniture series for Glas Italia last year.
Coloured glass also emerged as one of the trends at Milan design week this year. Urquiola showed a new cabinet featuring stained-glass doors, and the Campana brothers presented a buffet with blob-shaped holes filled with green and blue glass.
For the Orion table, which is based on the Greek mythological character Orion, Archibong used a gradient that starts as red at the top of the legs and blends to blue towards the bottom.
"Orion was a hunter, and was son of the sea god Poseidon," said Archibong. "He had the ability to walk on water, though his violent temperament left a blood red trail in his wake."
"The Orion table evokes the imagery of blood dissipating in the deep blue sea," he added.
The Galilee table refers to the Sea of Galilee, where the bible says Jesus walked on water.
Depicting this through his design, Archibong used a blue gradient to evoke the appearance of "water frozen in time".
Archibong's tables were presented at Salone Satellite – a platform for emerging designers at the Salone Del Mobile furniture fair – from 12 to 17 April 2016.
Other pieces launched at the fair included a set of tables referencing Minimalist sculpture by Swedish studio Claesson Koivisto Rune, and a range of desks by London studio Industrial Facility based on park benches.
