In 1912, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque introduced papier collé to modern art — the technique of collaging everyday materials such as newspaper, fabric, and patterned paper directly onto the canvas. It was a radical shift: art no longer represented reality, it physically incorporated it, layering planes of color, texture, and material into a single composition. This technique became one of the foundational gestures of Cubism.
The Kol Aj Dining Table by Malabar is a tribute to this pioneering collage technique. Designed as part of the Future Classics Collection, the table features a circular tabletop crafted through fine marquetry, combining exotic wood veneers arranged in overlapping planes of color and form. The result echoes the fragmented figures and layered backgrounds characteristic of Cubist collage art.
The table's conical base is built from alternating strips of natural oak and smoked walnut wood, extending the same layered construction principle to the structure itself — as if the base were, in effect, a three-dimensional collage. This design detail reinforces the connection between the tabletop's marquetry pattern and the sculptural form beneath it.
The Kol Aj Dining Table joins the Ih Maj In Cabinet in Malabar's Future Classics Collection, a series of art-inspired furniture pieces that translate 20th-century painting techniques, Cubism, collage, and abstraction into contemporary, handcrafted furniture for art-filled living and dining spaces.
