Madeira is a minimalist side table created by France-based designer Thevenot Clément, in collaboration with Joyce Broussillou. What appears as aged oak reveals itself, upon closer inspection, to be cast bronze with subtle golden highlights. This tension between appearance and reality serves as the perfect entry point to understanding a work that explores the ancestral dialogue between materials, processes, and human ingenuity.

The table emerges from a fascination with transformation. Its bronze top, molded from aged oak and finished with a black patina, evokes burnt wood—a nod to the very fuel that historically enabled the alchemical processes of glass and bronze production. As the designers explain, “The melting of these materials requires burning wood in large quantities.” This poetic circularity, where wood becomes the catalyst for transforming other materials and is then itself transformed through representation, reveals layers of material consciousness at work.

The glass legs present their own narrative of technical mastery. Blown into experimental oak molds, they retain the texture and roughness of the original wood while demanding extraordinary patience and skill. “The wooden mold and all the sharp and natural aspects it contains makes the blow of the piece delicate,” note the designers, highlighting the precarious dance between control and chance inherent in craft processes.