Decorating a home is never as easy as it might look — there are countless decisions to be made and the bigger the home, the bigger the challenge.


One of the most basic but fundamental decisions to be made is what type of furniture is needed and where it might go — living or dining room, bedroom or kitchen area.


Transitional areas in the home present a particular challenge.


Some people like to keep empty hallways and foyers or vestibules, decorating only with light fixtures, a mirror or artwork, but more often than not some kind of tabletop surface is required to support decorative objects. These are known as consoles and if chosen wisely for an entrance area can set the tone for the rest of an interior.


A console table is, by definition, a table whose top surface is supported by one front leg or more frequently two of what are known as “corbels” or side “brackets”, rather than the four legs found on tables in general. Consoles can either stand alone as a sort of side table or as a “pier” table that is fixed to or abutting a wall.


Typically consoles are used in entryways and hallways where the space is shallow but consoles actually have a wide range of applications in the home, from storage to functional surfaces used along walls or behind sofas in a living room.


The editors of Incollect have selected some of our favorite consoles to celebrate the creative ingenuity and inventiveness of designers over the decades. Some designs come with drawers and doors, others are more like a table or desk. Some even dispense with functionality and exist as pieces of decorative sculpture.





The Deer Console by Jean-Marie Fiori is a whimsical piece of furniture that gives a playful nod to the consoles of Diego Giacometti. Signed and numbered, in a limited edition of 25, it is a piece of functional sculpture. “The Deer Console is emblematic of Jean-Marie Fiori’s unique aesthetic sensibility. In this piece humor and innocence are infused into elegant materials such as patinated bronze and palm wood,” says Anne-Solène Malterre from Galerie Dumonteil.



The Akasha console is made of hand-sculpted bronze with a beehive or cell-like top supporting slices of amethyst stone and a double-terminated amethyst crystal at the center of the supporting base structure. “Akasha is Sanskrit for what we call ether in the West,” says designer Mark Brazier-Jones, who conceived the piece in 2021 as an expression of the mysteries of nature. “In this realm resides the information that informs the arrangement of atoms that the third dimension is built upon.”



The White Console by Giuseppe Ducrot, signed and dated 2023, is an impressively unique design made of glazed ceramic. It is a sinuous object that resembles several giant pieces of aluminum twisted and tied together to create a console. It is Baroque in its formal inspiration, but contemporary in appearance — Ducrot is one of the leading Italian ceramic artists today. “White Console is like the rest of his works, it translates the discourse of a sculptor more than a designer, by volume, material, the play of light and of shadow,” says Jennifer Norton from Twenty First Gallery.



This spectacular, futuristic console is a handmade table in sandblasted oak gilded with gold leaf and gilt brass and a spectrolite granite top. The piece is signed and numbered from an edition of two and according to the designer, Antoine Vignault, it is designed to look like it is suspended in the air. Vignault, who in addition to being a designer is the owner of OAK Oneofakind Gallery, describes it as “a phoenix floating through a starry sky,” adding, “my Bellatrix console spreads its shimmering wings.” The first Bellatrix console was created for the exhibition UNIVERS at Galerie Patrick Fourtin, Paris, in  2015 and was sold almost immediately to interior designer Tony Ingrao.



Eben Blaney designs and builds handmade contemporary furniture in his Maine studio that is clean-lined, elegant and functional. He works mostly in warm, beautiful natural woods as evidenced by his Wedge Console, composed of three precise wood components plus a wedge that is assembled to lock the whole structure in place. The precise joinery involved in this piece is visible, revealing the imaginative engineering that gives the piece its animated, dynamic stance.



“The sculptural, graphic quality of the bronze Rubicon is where refinement meets Brutalism. Alluring, bold, and unexpected, it’s a known shapeshifter,” is how Lyle thinks of and describes his signature work. Customizable, it is available in various fabricated metal finishes including polished bronze, polished stainless, stainless matte, charcoal, matte bronze, gunmetal, blackened steel, and arch brown.



“The Vortex Collection are my favorite pieces that we offer,” says Chris Fisher from Van den Akker. The Vortex Console table, by Belgian artist Yann Dessauvages, features brass inlaid by hand in resin and a central, oval recessed pewter tray that looks like a little rain puddle. The Vortex is available in a variety of metals and dimensions and comes with either a straight or a curved edge depending on client needs. 



The exquisite Pyrite Console by Kam Tin, designed in 2017, is part of the gallery’s “gemstone furniture collection,” says Nina Malka, gallery assistant at Maison Rapin in Paris that represents Kam Tin creations designed by Philippe Rapin. The console is made by hand of cubic natural pyrite worked as a mosaic on a wood structure. “The cubic pyrite is a very special stone that can be found in only one mine, and that comes perfectly square from the ground,” says Malka. 



“An elegant and powerful statement piece that seemingly defies gravity,” says Neal Aronowitz about his blue Whorl Console in powder-coated aluminum. Winner of the 2017 Gray Award for Product Design and also the 2018 Interior Design Magazine Best of the Year Award, this console, crafted in Portland, Oregon, has proven to be so popular that it is now available in a variety of materials and finishes including concrete canvas, a groundbreaking new material which the artist pushed to its limits to initially create his fluid, lyrical form, and more recently powder-coated aluminum.



“We particularly love this console for its organic, tree-like shape, and the way the malleability of bronze and the softness of marble are emphasized by the design,” says Erik Mullendorff from 88 Gallery in London. Created using cast bronze and marble, it is as elegant as it is striking for its sensual, organic form resembling a cloud. It is also functional — making it an outstanding example of contemporary design. Comes from an edition of 25 exclusive to 88 Gallery London.




“This is a very exciting console table,” says dealer Paul Donzella. “I’m equally struck by the sculptural quality of the base, with its direct reference to a rack of stag antlers, and the dynamic nature of the piece. There is a nod here to equilibrium, as the entire piece seems to defy gravity.” Designed in 2022, the Stag console is made of “islands of onyx floating on top of brass with a cast horn-shaped base.” Made to order in France this is a memorable statement piece. 



“We like the Cubist and unstructured side of the console. It’s a quirky and elegant design at the same time,” says Audrey Caillet from Galerie Glustin in Saint-Ouen in France. The Destructured console is made of a brass frame and wood covered with circular cutouts of tinted mirrors and old tinted glass handcrafted by French artisans. The unusual shape and design make it unique among contemporary consoles. 




Taher Chemirik is a jewelry designer as well as beginning in 2021 creator of furniture and lights. His La Naive console embodies Spring and joins a playful, contemporary design sensibility with the fine workmanship of jewelry and traditional decorative arts. “It testifies of Taher’s love of nature as much as his capacity to invent functional work that is both flamboyant and balanced,” says Béatrice Saint-Laurent from Galerie BSL. Handcrafted in Paris, this console is a dramatic object made of, Saint-Laurent says, “a constellation of golden and gunmetal gray brass flowers sculpted one by one.”




“The softness of the shapes and the subtle contrast between gloss and matte evoke great sophistication,” says Cecile Jeandel from the Galerie Carole Decombe in Paris describing the Elytre Console by designer Emmanuel Levet Stenne. There is a casual, elegant simplicity to this design, conceived in 2018 and made with a marble top, patinated brass and lacquered aluminum cast feet. From a limited edition of 8.



“Pierre Renart’s entire Ribbon Collection was inspired by the work of the German mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius,” says Carla Gautier from the gallery Maison Parisienne in Paris. The Möbius Console was the first piece from this collection and is a reinvention of Möbius’ famous endless ribbon structure, the Mobius strip, which is a compact surface with a single side, interior and exterior that connects up. Renart has made several versions of the design in various dimensions, woods and colors.



The Bogdan collection by studiointervallo is made remarkably from a single trunk of linden wood. It is, in short, an entire family of furniture generated from one material source. “The Bogdan collection by studiointervallo is the favorite of ours at Galerie SORS.,” says Rebecca Ross Carlén, Founder, Galerie SORS., “especially the console, with its added height that elongates the cone-shaped legs creating a visual play between the lightness of each element versus the strength when these elements combine. It seems like a metaphor for how we are stronger together than apart.” 

Photo by Giulio Boem



The Frolic Wall Mounted Console is made of solid walnut with a natural stain. It is the epitome of beauty as simplicity — streamlined and biomorphic in form. It is a favorite piece of Amir Habibabadi, the creative force behind the Los Angeles-based design studio Amorph, which has received a great deal of attention from AD100 interior designers in recent years. Customizable and made to order, it is available in various finishes. 



The Second Overtone console was designed in 2021 by Miriam Carpenter, a RISD alumna who began her career designing alongside Mira Nakashima at the George Nakashima Woodworkers in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Made with a spalted maple top, and carved maple base with lovely patinated bronze stand-offs, it pays homage to her material of choice and the focus of all of her work — wood. As she explains, “No matter how long one has worked with wood or how intimately one knows the material, each piece from each tree has its own experience and characteristics uniquely formed by its geographical location, the effects of the seasons, wind, rain, what grew beside it, what pathogens were present, and how it was cut and dried.”



Victoria Magniant pays particular attention to finishes and the quality of her products, which are frequently the result of collaboration with master craftsmen. The Ki console by Magniant is a tribute to Japanese cabinetmaking but made in France. “I wanted to go towards the exceptional by collaborating with a French cabinet maker known for a sense of detail and his unique know-how,” says Magniant. “This collection explores the Japanese Yakisugi wood technique, by “fossilizing” the wood, giving it an almost mineral appearance.” The beauty of the console for Magniant lies in its materiality. “Organic yet almost mineral, it needs to be felt to understand its nature.”



This beautiful bronze and glass console depicts a trio of tree trunks but is so much more. It is whimsical and organic, created as a prototype for a popular limited edition of similar pieces by Jean Boggio, the famous French designer, goldsmith, and jeweler. Boggio brings together inspirations from fairy tales, legends, and childhood memories to create pieces that evoke beauty and mystery.



“This piece of work allows us to leave our everyday problems and then go on a much further journey,” says London-based designer Grzegorz Majka. The console is made to order of hand-crafted brass and hand-carved marble, materials carefully selected by the designer, he says, to “evoke a source of energy and a force that drives us to act to achieve higher goals.” The piece is unique and the price is upon request.



by Benjamin Genocchio