In 1952, Charlotte Perriand traveled to Mexico as an advisor on craft and industrial production. The work she produced there carried the weight of that exchange: forms shaped by artisan tradition and sharpened by modernist discipline. The Mexique Coffee Table is one of those works. Reissued by Cassina within its I Maestri collection, the table arrives in two expressions. The first pairs a solid American walnut top with a matt black lacquered steel base, the warmth of the grain held in precise tension with the geometry of the metal. The second, finished in Glossy Petroleo, deepens the surface into a rich lacquer while preserving the same architectural clarity of form. Perriand never treated materials as ornament. The contrast here is considered, even structural: two sensibilities, one resolved object.
