Antigua Cabinet

Wittmann is breathing fresh life into two traditions through Antigua – the notion of ornamentation as a design feature, and the genre of the independent, free-standing item of furniture.

With characteristic effortlessness and expressivity, Luca Nichetto picks up on a thread once held by the great master Josef Hoffmann. Precision handcraftsmanship and the perfect interplay between the most exclusive materials bestow treasured-piece status upon the items that make up the Antigua collection. Elevating functional objects to new heights through artistic design was the overriding goal of the Wiener Werkstätte collective – and a discipline that Hoffmann mastered like virtually no other. It was ornamentation that played a defining role in this approach.

Nichetto references this principle in Antigua, arranging the leather elements in such a way that they appear to hover proud of the fronts. He also articulates his appreciation of what went before by giving this ornamentation not just an aesthetic role, but an essential function, too: arranged asymmetrically yet in harmony with one another, each drawer and door is adorned with an element that performs an additional function as a handle, in a direct reference to the elegant logic that defined Wiener Werkstätte design.