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Q. Can you help me find an unfinished Parsons table before I lose the will to live?


A. Now considered the Gap pocket T of American interior design, the Parsons table used to be a deluxe decorating item, available only to decorators and architects who had it custom-made by cabinetmakers. Even so it seems to have somewhat egalitarian roots.

In the most likely version of the story the French decorator Jean-Michel Frank, the undisputed master of luxurious minimalism, was lecturing at the Paris branch of the Parsons School of Design in the 1930's. According to an oral history in the Parsons archives, Frank challenged students to design a table so basic that it would retain its integrity whether sheathed in gold leaf, mica, parchment, split straw or painted burlap, or even left robustly unvarnished.

What grew out of Frank's sketches and the students' participation was initially called the T-square table, rigorously plain but with stylistic distinction: whatever its length or width, its square legs were always the same thickness as its top.

Stanley Barrows, a Parsons student who became one of the school's most celebrated professors, recalled that the student creation was brought to 3-D life in New York by a handyman janitor at Parsons. Exhibited at a student show, the table, whose designer remains unknown, quickly became a favorite of tastemakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

In America the first Parsons tables were mass-produced in 1963 by two leading furniture companies, Mount Airy and Directional. And since then the design has been knocked off at every conceivable price in every possible material, including plastic. Ikea makes the tables, as does West Elm, whose 36-inch-square coffee table, above, is veneered fiberboard; $199 at westelm.com or (888) 922-4119.

Unfinished versions, however, are more difficult to find. Gothic Cabinet Craft, a New Jersey company with locations in New York City and elsewhere, recently added an authentic Parsons-style coffee table to its range of unfinished furniture. Measuring 48 inches long, 24 wide and 18 high, it has a 3-inch-thick top and square legs that fulfill the classic Parsons formula. It costs $169 in unfinished birch veneer. Add $63 if you want it finished in one of nine optional stains, including Ipswich pine and walnut; gothiccabinetcraft.com or (888) 801-3100

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