Bench Mark

Just try forgetting Molletta once you’ve laid eyes on it! Taking a cue from Pop Art’s fascination with outsized utilitarian objects (they’re looking at you, Claes Oldenburg), architects Paolo and Michela Baldessari designed this uncannily accurate clothespin-shaped bench last year for Italian brand Riva 1920, and my, what a statement this piece would make in any environment, indoors or out.

Constructed from solid cedar, Molletta is as much a triumph of craftsmanship as observation, as much art as furniture, at once fanciful, yet perfectly rational—who could have imagined the vertical form of a clothespin translating so naturally into horizontal seating? Not us; though, now that we have, we can’t believe we failed to see the logic before.

Photos: Archiproducts