April 3, 2009
Hella, No
The Dutch designer’s new Frog Table
This morning Dezeen posted images of two new Hella Jongerius tables that will go on display next week at Galerie Kreo, in Paris. Now, I’m a great admirer of Jongerius’s textiles, furniture design, ceramics, and overall fondness for factory-floor experimentation. But the hulking toad straddling the corner of the (appropriately-titled) Frog Table—a limited-edition piece in walnut and transparent blue enamel—strikes me as intensely ugly and even borderline frightening.
Help me out, readers: Is this whimsy gone horribly wrong, or a kind of awesome piece of intentional grotesquerie? Your comments, please.