Ceramique, a table designed by AL_A, challenges perceptions of materiality and structure, history and modernity. It is the world’s first piece of furniture to be crafted in silicon carbide, a high-tech ceramic more commonly used in aerospace industries. Ceramique began in the ceramics collection of the V&A. This inspired AL_A’s design for a porcelain courtyard, part of their project for the new galleries on Exhibition Road, necessitating extensive research into ceramics’ potential. The result of eighteen months’ exploration, Ceramique examines a material’s capability to give an everyday object new meaning by turning processes at technology’s frontiers into something seemingly ancient, fired with a traditional crackled glaze.
