6 Furniture Designs With Split Personalities From The Palindrome Series

Hannah (palindrome) Wardrobe The way to perfect 3-D symmetry is the mold and cast.  British designer Peter Marigold has achieved just that in the split-personality furniture he calls the Palindrome Series.

Palindrome is a word generally applied to letters or numbers that read the same whether read from left to right or right to left. English words that are palindromes include the words civic, level, rotator, kayak, and racecar.  

But interior designer Peter Marigold's designs, some of which he anoints with palindromic names, go beyond being palindromes.  Sure both sides of the furniture look like mirror images of each other, but look more closely and you will see that each side is the reverse of the other. That's what mold and cast create.  Like ice cubes in a tray, the mold creates a reverse part.

Marigold has made half of each piece of furniture from wood, and then prepared a cast of acrylic and gypsum composite to lay inside the wood.  Once the cast is set, the wooden mold is taken apart and  reassembled as its opposite form, before being joined together with the cast.  But note that the cast will reflect all markings on the mold in reverse.... So if the mold is scratched deeply or dented, the cast will show raised parts in the same places. The designer also engraved a Palindrome word on the wood that show up on the cast in reverse.  

Here are some delightfully symmetrical pieces from the collection....

1.  The Palindrome Series Gun Cabinet

Here is a good example of the cast and mold technique.  The right half, the mold, shows raised surfaces in the decoration, that are recessed surfaces in the cast on the left.  This is not a mirror image but a reverse image.  The technique coupled with the reassembly of the wood mold has enabled Marigold to achieve true symmetry in design.

 2. The Palindrome Series Anna Chair

3. The Palindrome Series Deed Dining Table

4. The Palindrome Series Mr. Owl Ate My Metal Worm Bookshelf

Notice how the extended arms of the wooden shelves create empty spaces in the cast.

5.  The Palindrome Series ANA Stool

Even the excess casting material shows on the mold half of this ANA (palindrome) Stool!

6.  The Palindrome Series Civic Bench

Note that the Civic (palindrome) Bench is smartly extended in the center.

Visit more pieces from the Palindrome Series at Moss online.