AN ABANDONED AIRFIELD
Past the suburban edge of Copenhagen is an abandoned airfield. Old hangars sit among silent roads and wide fields. One of those half-tube structures is the home of the small studio, Gilbert Gilbert, that carefully craft bespoke furniture by hand. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t announce itself and we went there only because STUDIO 0405 invited us.
Inside, solid wood is everywhere. Cabinetmakers move between benches — oiling, sanding, fitting. When we arrived, Gilbert Gordon, the man behind the name, was already talking about wood. He talked about availability, sorting, qualities, and prices. Not as a supplier would but rather as someone who spent a long time paying close attention.
STUDIO 0405 is run by Nikolaj Mentze. Nikolaj moves carefully and designs things that last. He is the kind of designer who knows craft beyond the drawing board. He blows glass. He understands material not just as a design decision but as a lived one. He is, without making anything of it, remarkably talented.
The collaboration between Nikolaj and Gilbert goes back the years through several projects. They have a relationship built on a mutual understanding of craft and shared beliefs. When Nikolaj first developed TABLE 01 for Atelier September, Gilbert was the natural place to turn.
Thirty tables are currently being made for Marmormolen, the ambitious wood construction project in Nordhavn, whose approach to building in solid mass timber reflects our core: that the way things are made matters as much as what is made.
ON CHERRY WOOD
TABLE 01 will be launched in solid cherry. Nikolaj once said a line that stuck — when you get over your nineties’ trauma around cherry wood, it becomes remarkable. Cherry as a material is warm, structural, and deepens with age. Nikolaj chose cherry as a defining, repeating element of the new Atelier September on Gammel Kongevej 100, where an early version already witnesses life at the table.
ON SWEDISH MIDSUMMER
STUDIO 0405’s inspiration behind TABLE 01 is Swedish midsummer — the long tables carried out into fields and yards, meals stretched across an entire evening with family and loved ones. This image shaped the table: how it is made to feel, and how it is made to move.
The tabletop mounts and dismounts. The legs fold. A long dining table that flattens completely, without losing an inch of the structural integrity that solid cherry demands. It is a table built around a moment — the act of gathering.
