muller van severen and laila gohar celebrate the pleasure of dining with 'the pigeon table'

The pigeon table

Inspired by a conversation surrounding the mud-brick pigeon houses in Egypt, designers Laila Gohar and Muller Van Severen present ‘The Pigeon Table’, the collective enthusiasm of both parties toward each other’s work and reverence for paying homage to one’s homeland and roots. Spiraling steel rods puncture the uneven shapes of colored blocks of the table design, each level providing a breathing space to let objects be displayed or house pigeons on the run.

The duo sent images, drawings, and ideas back and forth – not meeting in real life, but done virtually – until the eventual design came to life. As they share, what ran between them during their conception process and the intuition that flowed into the drafts could not be described in words, but through a tangible product. The expressive connection that they tied in results in a table that sees through their love for authenticity, everydayness, and a form of banality that can be ingenious from the rudimentary of the materials to the techniques employed in creating the table.

‘The Pigeon Table is an object made out of love for food and service, being together, conviviality, and the pleasure of dining. It is an invitation to our world, our party, a dinner with an ode to what brings us together. Although we have never met in real life, we feel we have been sitting at this table for years,’ the designers share. The Pigeon Table by Laila Gohar and Muller Van Severen will be presented during the Salone del Mobile in Milan in June 2022.

images by Frederik Vercruysse

Laila Gohar

Food, being the most ancient bearer of culture, can be used as an ice breaker, bringing people together and bonding at an intimate moment in time. As Laila Gohar describes her craft, she creates one-of-a-kind dining experiences in unconventional places around the world by investigating the nature of human contact and producing convivial, multi-sensory foodie events. Her use of food as both an artistic medium and a tool for communication fuels her work on historical ways of food preparation and, more broadly, the significance of food in society.

the pleasure of dining and celebration inspires ‘the pigeon table’

Miller Van Severen

Established in the early spring of 2011, Muller Van Severen comprises Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen, the artists whose ethos naturally falls halfway between design and art. The duo has been on the hunt for sculptures that define what furniture products should be, always including the environment surrounding these objects and distinguished by a rigorous investigation into their shared passions for art, architecture, and materials. Muller Van Severen’s designs, as the duo puts it, have been formed nearly intuitively and effortlessly, a reflection of drawing with crayons in space.

spiraling steel rods puncture the uneven shapes of colored blocks