Flora Perma Cabinet 143 White is a minimal cabinet created by Warsaw-based designer Marcin Rusak for Twenty First Gallery. With Flora Perma, it’s much more about the beauty of natural cross-sections, revealing an intricate world of floral architecture that wouldn’t be seen otherwise. Here, the decoration is literally coming from the natural material. The Flora Perma process delves into aspects of the design exploration that began with the Flora collection, assessing the potentialities offered by the production and use of the synthetic substances derived from the combination of artificial resin and the waste materials accumulated by florists. The amalgam-product obtained from the chemical reaction that transforms a slightly viscous oily liquid into a solid polymer has a monolithic appearance, condensed in compact blocks.

When dissected along their longitudinal axis, they become single sheets, each with its own unique pattern. The cutting exposes the less visible, anatomical details of the flowers congealed in the body of the resin: individual plant portions, grouped or isolated, are crystallized in ever-variable sequences, arrayed on the surfaces of the different sheets as on the pages of an unprecedented contemporary herbarium. Stems, petals, leaves, grasses: their original fragility is transformed into a fossil-like element, generating surprising decorative effects that suggest something new — natural ornamentation that, depending on the hue of the resin utilized, takes on a darker or lighter chromatic dominant.

Photography by Mathijs Labadie