'Mono' (model A) Designed by Konstantin Grcic (German , born 1965), 1995. Manufactured by SCP Ltd, London, 1997. Steel, painted grey.

Table made from powder coated steel plate
An L shaped solid steel stem screws into a circular steel base. The stem is joined by welding to a rectangular steel plate. The top piece, folded with three 90 degree turns, forms an open-ended rectangle.

This table is from a range of four related designs. Each table comprises only three components and two joints.
The slightly textured powder-coated surface gives the table a monochrome appearance as a single, uninterrupted form.

Type A

Given by the manufacturers

The Mono name refers to the use of a single material in production.

This table was included in the display "...not so simple" in the Design Now room of the Twentieth Century Gallery, April to October 1997, for which it was lent by the manufacturer, SCP Ltd of Shoreditch, London. Subsequently, it was donated to the Museum by SCP.

Historical significance: This table extends the representation of the company SCP in the collection, as well as showing an object type (pedestal table) infrequently collected by the Museum.

This table is the first representation of the work of Konstantin Grcic in the permanent collection. Grcic, a graduate of Parnham College and the RCA, is an internationally known designer of furniture and products in a variety of materials, and has designed for companies in Germany, Britain and Italy (including Authentics, Cappellini, Driade, Montina and Flos.)

Grcic's work is part of an international reductive trend in design whereby a purely modernist treatment of materials and form, informed by function, is tempered with individualism and humour. This new generation of minimalists create designs which are as sculptural as they are functional. Grcic does not work with pattern, preferring the effect of simplified forms of pure colour. This table is one of four Mono Tables designed for SCP which share the simplicity of disk bases and simple pedestals, but which have variable folded sheet metal tops to create several enclosed storage spaces. The designer claims that the Mono Tables are among his own favourite designs.

The manufacturer, SCP, is acknowledged as Britain's leading manufacturer of contemporary furniture and its representative in the international design world. Since the mid-1980s the company has promoted some of this country's best design talent, including Jasper Morrison and Matthew Hilton as well as Konstantin Grcic.

The veteran Italian designer Achille Castiglioni is an admirer of Grcic, and describes him with these words:
"He's a designer who's not out to change the world, yet he creates objects that suggest types of behaviour, and pursues demanding, neutral, well-thought-out projects that are bound to have a lasting effect." (Intramuros, April/May 1997, p. 21)
He also appreciated that Grcic's work is not too personal, and that he is capable of keeping a low profile and allowing the work to stand alone. For his part, Grcic acknowledges the influence of Castiglioni's work on his decision to become a designer in the early 1980s. In Intramuros, Cristina Morozzi writes,
"There's no formal resemblance between Castiglioni's and Grcic's work even if their objects reflect what is basic and essential. Instead, they share a common attitude. They have a similar penchant for questioning how objects will be used - they are both in search of that indispensible substantiation to which Castiglioni relentlessly refers. Grcic is endowed with the attributes cited by [Michele] De Lucchi: kindness, humility, discretion. He is aware that you have to know how to see and listen before you can get to the heart of things, before you can make 'essential' objects that seem familiar, 'unpretentious' objects - but objects that know how to appeal to people just the same". (Ibid, p.23)

W.7-1997