A Table for the Holidays

The importance of being together during the holiday season, from two different points of view

Design historian Catharine Rossi examines conviviality at the table in 20th- and 21st-century design, explaining how different designers have interpreted eating and drinking together.

In response, four of Molteni&C’s iconic tables are festively set for celebrations all over the world.

For Charles and Ray Eames, design was not just about creating objects. The celebrated duo understood that design is as much about creating experiences as objects, and objects play a role in creating experiences. Ray would prepare meals on tables beautifully laid with tablecloths, napkins, flowers and other decorations. Guests would be treated to specially sourced and simply prepared foods to enjoy together, turning an everyday activity into a celebration of commensality and conviviality.

The furnishings and spaces used for eating together have transformed significantly since the first appearance of table-like stands for food in Ancient Egypt. While Roman guests dined at small and round tables in separate triclinium, the multifunctional halls of Medieval castles were furnished with trestle tables for communal dining that were taken apart at the meal’s end. Innovations such as extendable, drop leaf, and gate leg tables arose between the 16th and 18th centuries, while the 19th century saw the advent of a key fixture of the contemporary social calendar, the dinner party. Into the 20th century, and the 1950s and 60s heralded a transformation that is still influencing homes today: the removal of a separate dining room in favour of more informal open-plan living, in which both everyday dining and celebratory meals take place between kitchen islands and corner sofas.

The Eameses approach exemplified designers’ growing interest in food in the 20th century, which resulted in projects such as the Austrian designer Hans Hollein’s table of breads from around the world, created for the MAN TransFORMS exhibition (1976) at New York’s Cooper Hewitt Museum. The display materialised Hollein’s interest in design’s relationship with daily life and the simultaneous universality and rich diversity of this food staple.

The 2000s has seen a new explosion of designers interested in food and the eating experience. Self-described “eating designer” Marjie Vogelzang pioneered the concept of food as a material, creating installations such as Sharing Dinner (2005), in which diners were separated by vertical tablecloths with holes to poke their heads through.

It makes sense to see food and feasting as the key to these designers’ messages of collectivity and environmental harmony: when we eat together, we are not just connecting with those seated next to us, but with all those involved in the global food economy. In the 21st century it seems that design has to be more hospitable and thoughtful than ever before. The designer’s role is not just to anticipate the needs of guests invited to the table, but to consider the impact of those needs on those not invited too.

A design that amplifies Molteni&C’s sense of warmth and home, exalted by a monumental floral composition, in various arrangements, which this year also welcomes visitors to the flagship stores in Milan, London, Paris, New York, and Miami throughout the holiday season.