Named after the epic poems of ancient times, GamFratesi’s Epic Table for GUBI is a sculptural piece of furniture inspired by Greek columns and Roman architecture.
The collection brings personality to private settings and an intriguing sense of weight and tactility to public and hospitality spaces, where its resilient surfaces offer exceptional levels of durability. The varying heights and diameters within the Epic Table Collection mean a single monochromatic table can stand alone or be combined in dynamic clusters of varying material, height and color.
Just as the first Epic Table is a material celebration of Italian travertine stone, this edition celebrates the graphic, enduring quality of steel, conceived as an extension to the travertine Epic Collection. Cooler materials such as metal are seeing a renaissance in interiors, especially when paired with warmer surfaces such as wood and stone. The form of the new Epic Table in steel responds to this new materiality with a more slender tabletop, playing with the contrast with the weighty slab of travertine that tops the earlier edition of the table. Juxtaposing two very different materials, the iterations work well in combination, contrasting both the form and the smooth, industrial steel with the imperfect, intensely colored natural stone.
GamFratesi Design Studio was established in 2006. Stine Gam (born 1975) and Enrico Fratesi (born 1978) belong to the latest generation of furniture architects. Stine is Danish, while Enrico is Italian and together they represent a new interpretation of the meeting between Danish and international design traditions.
GamFratesi's design takes its creative drive from a fusion of tradition and renewal and in an experimental approach to their chosen materials and techniques. With their dual traditional background, they draw on the classic Danish furniture and craft tradition as well as the classic Italian intellectual and conceptual approach. Understanding a tradition and addressing it actively in the workshop makes it possible to expand on it. From this cross-cultural substrate they create furniture that respectfully reflects tradition while also featuring unique embedded stories, symbols and associations, often expressed in a minimalist idiom.
"Our work is balancing between the traditional and surprising. Often it takes just a small detail to achieve or break an expression, and we are very curious about that. We work strictly with the Scandinavian approach to crafts, simplicity and functionalism, but there always happens to be a strong emotion to concept and story behind each work. Contrasts are often the center of our inspiration. Both in work and daily life we are constantly confronted with contrasts, and we do work a lot with references and respect to traditions in both our cultures. We both have roots in strong design cultures. Studying, researching and moving constantly between our two countries, it has become such a natural part of us, that it will also show in our work."
GamFratesi aim to create furniture that illustrates the process and the techniques that created it, and which reflect a persistent exploration of the diverse border zone between harmony and disharmony.
At GUBI, we're on a continual quest. A journey. Fuelled by our passion to discover overlooked icons from the past and future icons in the making, we've made a distinctive name for ourselves in the international design arena as a dynamic design force to be reckoned with.