Handcrafted furniture is hard to photograph and easy to feel. What distinguishes it from industrially made furniture lies in deviations that a picture smooths out: a gradient that runs deeper in one place, an edge where the light runs slightly differently. With brass this becomes particularly clear, because this metal accepts every treatment and hides none of them.
This page brings together the pieces made of patinated brass: tables, consoles, wall shelves and objects, all handcrafted in the same workshop in Germany. Some are available exclusively in brass, most also in brushed stainless steel.
A finished piece of furniture rarely reveals how it was made. With coated surfaces that is precisely the intention: one panel should look like the next, and the more alike the panels turn out, the better the machine has worked. Handcrafted brass furniture follows the opposite order. The work that went into it remains visible.
This can be read in three places. At the edge, over whose radius the light runs without faltering. At the seam, which is ground until the transition between two sheets disappears under the fingers. And on the surface, whose dark tone is not equally deep everywhere. None of these three places is conspicuous; together they make up the difference meant when people speak of craftsmanship.
The least predictable part is the patination, the step that gives the brass its tone. It is done by hand and leaves a gradient that can be planned but not repeated; how it works in detail is described in the article on patinating brass. Two examples of the same model therefore turn out the same size but differently dark.
Whether this is read as quality or irregularity depends on the expectation with which someone looks. Anyone looking for a perfectly uniform surface will not find it on a handcrafted piece of furniture. Anyone who wants to know how a piece was made can see it on the surface before it is written anywhere.
Handmade is a broad word. It is used for furniture that was screwed together by hand after a machine had cut, bent and coated all the parts. It is used just as much for pieces where the hand decides the outcome. Neither is a lie, and each means something different. The word does not separate the two cases, but the matter does.
With a piece of handcrafted brass furniture, the line can be drawn precisely. Machines take over what requires repeat accuracy: the laser cuts the blank, the press brake sets the angle. Everything that requires a decision then happens by hand, that is welding, grinding, patinating and reworking one last time if the tone is not right in one place.
This second part is the longer one. It cannot be accelerated because it depends on a person who looks at a surface and decides whether it is finished. A handcrafted piece of furniture therefore takes as long as it takes, and it begins with an order, not a shelf in a warehouse.
What follows from this is unspectacular and hard to beat. Between the design and the piece there is nobody who waves a deviation through in the hope that nobody will notice it anyway. It is noticed. That is the difference between a piece of furniture that was assembled by hand and one that was decided by hand.
In furniture making, brass usually appears as an ingredient: as a handle, as a foot, as a narrow edge on a top made of another material. As the load-bearing material of an entire piece it remains the exception. That has less to do with appearance than with what the alloy demands after cutting. Anyone looking for brass in a furniture store almost always finds it as an accent and almost never as a body.
Brass is softer than stainless steel. It accepts every treatment and shows it just as openly, which is an advantage when forming and an obligation on the surface: a grinding mark that disappears in the brushed finish of steel remains visible on brass. What this costs is attention, and that cannot be set on any machine.
What remains is the part that cannot be outsourced: grinding, patinating, judging. For a range calculated on volume, this is an obstacle. For a workshop that starts every piece individually, it is the norm. Brass therefore stands where things are handcrafted anyway, and the calculation works out where nobody thinks in series.
Anyone looking for handcrafted furniture therefore cannot avoid the material, and the reverse is equally true: a piece of furniture made of patinated brass is hard to build without someone taking it in hand. Handcrafted and brass do not describe two properties. They describe the same one.
The handcrafted brass range begins with the flat pieces. Among the coffee tables is ELYSIAN, a round disc on three cylindrical legs, exclusively in brass. KANJI, ZEN COFFEE TABLE and TUKKON TABLE are available in brass or in brushed stainless steel. On a horizontal surface, the gradient of the patination can be followed for the longest, because nothing interrupts it.
On the wall and next to the bed, the dark tone is used differently. Among the consoles is TUKKON CONSOLE in brass, as is YORU, the chest of drawers with two handleless drawers. Both have large, calm surfaces on which the patination can be seen along their entire length. A brass chest of drawers is therefore read less by its front than by the way the light runs along it.
With the shelves, the division runs through the category. The wall shelves KINKO, RYU, YUGEN, JIKU, ORIGAMI and CHOWA can be ordered in brass, the standing shelves remain in stainless steel. A patinated shelf on a light wall is a horizontal line that orders a room rather than filling it. It needs less surface for this than a light shelf, because the dark tone stands out from the plaster instead of merging into it.
Under Decor are the pieces that carry nothing: COSMOS and MONOLITH GOLDEN PEAK in hammered brass, the mirror REFLEXION and THE ROYAL GAME, whose 64 squares consist of two states of the same brass surface. That these four objects exist above all to be seen makes them the most unobstructed part of this page: they consist of nothing but material and work. In addition, outside Decor, there is the TUKKON CHAIR lounge chair, which is also available in brass.
On many pieces the surface is a choice and not a property of the model. Anyone who wants a particular piece in brass asks for it, and the answer depends on the individual piece: some are made only in brass, some only in stainless steel, many in both. When in doubt, it is not the catalogue that decides but the metal already present in the room.
The same applies to dimensions. Handcrafted metal furniture can be changed in length, height and depth, because every part is cut individually anyway. First the room is described, then drawn, then calculated. The cutting comes last.
The material still sets a limit. The larger a continuous brass surface becomes, the more visible its gradient and the more precisely the moment at which it is worked has to be right. With custom dimensions, it is therefore said in advance what the surface allows; occasionally the answer is that a smaller dimension is the better one.
How the same design language looks across the categories is shown in the overview of designer furniture; how the workshop behind it works is described on the home page. This page stays with the material and with the question of what the hand leaves behind in it. It is the same workshop, only described from three directions.
A handcrafted piece of furniture is ordered before it exists. After the order, five to six weeks pass in which it is created, and with brass the longer part of this time comes at the end: cutting and bending are done quickly, the surface needs its own time. These weeks are a lot for a product and little for a production.
On delivery day, a freight vehicle stops at the curb, and that is where delivery ends. Shipping costs apply only to the dining tables; all other pieces on this page are delivered free of charge. For a piece that is already in stock, there are 14 days after delivery to return it.
Then begins the part for which there is no specification. A piece of furniture made by hand is also used by hand in everyday life: touched, moved, wiped. Whether a patinated surface shows this over the years differs from piece to piece; the binding information belongs on the respective product page. And often the spot that is touched first after delivery is exactly the one that was worked last in the workshop.
What remains is a piece on which a particular week in a particular workshop can be read. Measured against what a piece of furniture usually promises, that is little. At the same time it is the only thing about it that cannot be copied.
Every piece is made individually and only after the order, in our own workshop in Germany that has been working with brass and stainless steel since 2000. Machines take over cutting and bending. Welding, grinding and patinating the surface are done by hand.
Patination is a chemical treatment that darkens the brass surface. The tone arises in the metal itself and not through paint or lacquer; it varies from piece to piece. The process in detail is described in the article on patinating brass.
The coffee tables ELYSIAN, KANJI, ZEN COFFEE TABLE and TUKKON TABLE, the dining tables ZEN DINING and PYRAMID TABLE, the console TUKKON CONSOLE, the chest of drawers YORU, the wall shelves KINKO, RYU, YUGEN, JIKU, ORIGAMI and CHOWA, the lounge chair TUKKON CHAIR and the objects COSMOS, MONOLITH GOLDEN PEAK, REFLEXION and THE ROYAL GAME are made in brass. Benches and standing shelves are built from stainless steel.
It is possible, but not promised. Whether and how much a patinated surface changes depends on the individual piece and its surface treatment; some pieces are also sealed. The information on the respective product page is binding.
Yes. Three properties can be changed on most models: the dimensions, the surface and the alloy. Before that, a scale drawing and a fixed price are prepared; production only begins once these have been approved. Not every dimension is structurally possible, and this is said in advance.
Yes. Design, cutting, welding and surface finishing take place at one location in Germany; no work step is outsourced. This applies to the brass pieces as well as to those made of stainless steel.
For brass as for stainless steel, a soft cloth, dry or slightly damp, is enough. Abrasive cleaners are unsuitable, as are acids, salts and alcohol, which are found in many glass and all-purpose cleaners. Spills should not be left to dry on the surface.