Magazine

Silk-curtained walls and a polished concrete floor bring a sense of theatre to Rose Uniacke’s stand at PAD London this year, animated by an abundance of vivid Mid-Century colour and illumination. Red-lacquered bookshelves by Dominioni and red ceramic tables by Raffaello are joined by Peter Collingwood’s extraordinary red and orange three-dimensional Macrogauze, suspended in one corner. Meanwhile a pastel-mint Drinks Trolley provides a playful counterpoint, offset by the soft, lunar glow of Cazenave’s Moon Rock Lamps.

These colours of modernity are tempered by the quieter wood tones and the artisanal qualities of natural materials. A monumental three-metre Dining Table by José Caldas, hewn from solid Juerana wood, is accompanied by a set of Neo-Basque Oak Dining Chairs with reeded seats and a Cabinet by Victor Courtray. Nearby, a caned Floor Lamp by Paavo Tynell, with its delicate slatted wooden shade and understated Scandinavian charm, stands alongside a rare Oak Cricket Table by Ruhlmann.

This sense of theatre continues with Gio Ponti’s Love-Seat Sofa from his celebrated ‘House of Fantasy’ period, its exuberant, undulating contours drawing upon Surrealism and the decorative excesses of the nineteenth century. A Ship’s Drinks Table, also by Ponti, delights in both wit and ingenuity, with inset brass holders designed to secure bottles and tumblers while at sea.

Elsewhere, the enduring elegance of Jean-Michel Frank’s X-shaped Table Lamps brings a note of quiet refinement. At the front of the stand, a monumental Aesthetic Movement mirror by Herter Brothers provides a final flourish, its dramatic mythological lion masks introducing an unexpected note of grandeur and fantasy.

Together, these pieces trace a century in which designers repeatedly challenged the boundaries of form, material and colour - moving between exuberance and restraint, the handmade and the modern, the theatrical and the quietly functional.

View the collection here.