The KnollStudio Albini Desk:



This desk was in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times this weekend and I fell in love. In the article the desk was from about 50 years ago (and was owned by filmmaker Louis Malle's nephew) and so I assumed it would be an impossible item to ever find. However, low and behold, KnollStudio still makes it.
The desk was created by the Italian rationalist architect Franco Albini , one of the first European designers commissioned to work for Knoll, in 1958. The free-floating drawers are beautiful and surprising all at once.
Rationalist architecture and design began in the early part of the 20th century because of the development of new materials and construction techniques, as well as an increase in urban populations. It's the stripped down type of logical design that presented the internal structure and processes of production and knowledgeably used the inexpensive raw materials of the post-war area such as the plate glass and steel used in this desk. In other words, it's a look of which I'm often a fan.