Metafora coffee table in marble and glass Lella and Massimo Vignelli (1980s)

Metafora #1 - Low table Designed in the USA by Lella and Massimo Vignelli and made in Italy by Maurizio Casigliani, this system of elements (a glass top and four Euclidean geometry supports in marble) to be assembled into a low table, is presented to the public for the first time at the autumn Macef and, immediately afterwards, at the Salone del Mobile in Milan in September 1979. Immortalized on the cover of “Casa Vogue” in November of the same year... it soon became a best seller of the newborn Casigliani brand dedicated to furnishing objects of which Metafora «anticipates and already contains some constant characteristics in the production» (Pier Carlo Santini). In particular for the explicit search for "solutions that are not too precarious in terms of taste" aimed at "exalting" the properties of marble as a "durable material par excellence" (Pier Carlo Santini). The four solids, clearly visible under the glass top, are like pieces of a witty and bizarre game. Elements in play whose free disposition is limited exclusively by gravity and the laws of statics. All the supports could be made with a single quality of marble, but also with different qualities, variously combined and combinable. The four now canonical versions of Metafora are: the three single-material ones in Bianco di Carrara marble, Nero Marquinia, Travertino and... here, the "historical" combination which includes the pyramid in Bianco di Carrara marble (Bianco P. marble), the cube in Nero Marquinia marble, the cylinder in Travertine and the sphere in Mondragone or Rasotica marble (today Emperador Dark). Originally there were at least 3 dimensional variations of the glass top: rectangular (120 x 80 x 2 cm); small rectangular (100 x 65 x 2 cm); large square (120 x 120 x 2 cm). The maximum height of the solids as well as the diameter of the cylinder was equal to 20 cm, while the diameter of the sphere was slightly lower (19.8/19.9 cm). Solid dimensions: Cube: 20 x 20 x 20 [h] cm Pyramid: 20 x 20 x 20 [h] cm Cylinder: 20 [Ø] x 20 [h] cm Sphere: 19.8/19.9 [Ø] cm Solids Weight: 17/22 kg