Mirror Mirror: State drawing room

The contemporary chairs you see here by British designer Max Lamb are each made from a single piece of cedar, measuring six by eight inches in cross-section.

He cut the beams on a band saw and put them together again, like a puzzle. Not a bit of the wood was wasted.

Lamb’s pieces are ingenious experiments with the building blocks of design. At the same time, they respond playfully to the woodcarvings here in the State Drawing Room: lime wood trophies by Samuel Watson, and two coronation thrones by Catherine Naish, one of few female master carvers known from the eighteenth century.

Lamb offers ‘a polite nod of respect’ to these precursors. Instead of skilful ornamentation, though, he emphasises the potential contained in every piece of wood.

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Painted Hall

Maker Bench (Hexagon) prototype, 2018
oak, walnut

Maker Bench (Hexagon) 2018
oak, walnut

Joris Laarman (b.1979), The Netherlands

Grotto

Cryo III, 2022
Steel, wood polystyrene, polyurea, aluminium foil, resin, suede, onyx

Concretion (edition 3/8), 2021
Aluminium

Chris Schanck (b. 1975), USA

The Chapel

Pew Bench/Moon (edition 2 of 8), 2016
Spoon Chair / Moon (edition 1 of 8), 2016
Spoon Chair / Moon (prototype), 2016
all sand-cast bronze, silver nitrate

Lode II (edition 1 of 8), 2021
Trove I, 2022
Trove II, 2022
Plot II (Prototype), 2022
all hand-carved Purbeck marble

Faye Toogood (b.1977), UK

The Oak Room

Hoard of Oak Hill, 2022
hand-carved oak

Hoard I, 2022
hand-carved bog oak

Hoard II, 2022
hand-carved bog oak

Faye Toogood (b. 1977), UK

Chapel Corridor

Rhythms Vase, 2014
white stoneware clay, with stained highlights

Ingxondorha (Volatile Rocky Terrain), 2022
Umthombo (Spring), 2022
Umgodi (A Mine), 2022
Amaza (Waves), 2022
Isiziba (A Pool), 2022
glazed, hand-coiled stoneware

Cornish Waterfall, 2019
stoneware

Andile Dyalvane (b. 1978)

Great Chamber

Vase no. 7, 2006
glass and rope

Vase no. 16, 2006
glass and patinated aluminium wire

Xiangzheng, 1999
glass polished and oxidised aluminium wire

Vase no. 4, 2006
glass and rope

Lingam, 1999
Lingam, 1999
Lingam, 1999
glass

Ettore Sottsass (1917–2007), Italy

Green Satin Drawing Room

Water Filter, Stalagmite, 2012
Water Filter, Stalactite, 2012
Water Filter, Funnel, 2012
Water Filter, Funnel 2012
Water Filter, Tongue 2012
all carbonised oak, mouth-blown glass, copper

Water Filter, Spoon, 2012
carbonised oak, mouth-blown glass

Glass bottle, 2012
carbonised oak log, mouth-blown glass

FormaFantasma (founded 2009), Italy