Nests Of Tables

Few furniture designs combine elegance, simplicity, and convenience. Nesting tables are a great example: they save space, can be used as stools or tables for food and beverages, or as stylish pieces of furniture. They can also be moved to new locations.

Nesting tables, or nests of tables, have been around for a very long time. Nesting tables were first conceptualized in 18 and documented by British cabinetmaker Thomas Sheraton’s book “The Cabinet Dictionary” in 1803, labeled “quartetto.” The modern nesting table is a product from a groundbreaking design movement in Germany in the early 1900s: the Bauhaus Movement.

The German School of Design, founded in 1919 in Weimar by Walter Gropius, was known as Bauhaus. Its name means ‘construction house,’ but it is more accurately called design school.’

The 19th and 20th-century movements of the Arts and Crafts, Constructivism, and Art Nouveau inspired the Bauhaus philosophy. It was designed for the masses but was not produced mechanically or industrially. The design aimed to create Gesamtkunstwerk, a ‘total piece of art.’ In workshops, students were taught industrial design and sculpture, along with primary color, form, and material knowledge.

The Bauhaus School closed in 1933 under the Nazi regime, but its influence on art, architecture, and design was widely acclaimed in many countries, including Western Europe, Canada, Russia, and Israel. Bauhaus students and faculty included notables such as Wassily Kandinsky, Marcel Breuer, Josef Albers, Marcel Breuer, Paul Klee, and Laszlo Móholy-Nagy, among others, created some of the most iconic furniture pieces of the 20th century.

The Bauhaus Nesting Tables are also known as Albers Nesting Tables in honor of their designer Josef Albers, a professor at the Bauhaus before its closure and emigrated to America afterward. Albers created these tables for the Moellenhof House, Berlin, while he was working as the workshop’s artistic director at the Bauhaus. This set of four accent tables, ranging in size from small to large, had a solid oak base and table tops lacquered in green, yellow, and orange.

Julie Lasky, in her New York Times article In Praise Of Nesting Tables, writes:

Nesting tables are candidates who keep their promises. They promise to be compact, discreet, versatile, and – mirabile dictu – they are.

Lasky points out in the same article that the European words for furniture, such as the French “Mobile” or German “Mobel,” are derived from mobility.

Nesting tables embody the simplicity, elegance, and functionality of Bauhaus. The nest of tables is space-saving and very useful when storing extra items.

Browse our furniture that saves space. We would also be happy to create your own solid wood nesting table to add rustic-modern charm and style to your home. Contact today!