Orior launches Objects: a marble collection made from offcuts

Furniture brand Orior has added to its line of distinctive, contemporary furniture with a limited edition range of matching objects, made from marble and stone offcuts gleaned from Orior’s stock inventory. Sculptural in form and available in an array of beautiful hues, the six-piece collection comprises a bowl, a vase, a candle holder, a magazine holder, a pair of bookends and a tabletop sculpture. 

Originally from Newry, Northern Ireland (and now with a second office in New York), since 1979 Orior has been creating furniture and interiors for private clients, it relaunched in 2019 under the creative direction of second generation Ciaran McGuigan, as a sleek furniture brand revisiting pieces from the archives.

The new objects’ smaller scale poetically echoes the curvaceous and organic forms present in Orior’s main collection. Recurring elements, such as tube-like structures and bull-nosed shapes, tie the two enterprises together, while emphasising the shared material palette as well. Each object has been made solely from leftover materials.

‘In designing Objects, we used it as an opportunity to create new shapes and forms that could eventually evolve into furniture,” says McGuigan. ‘It was new territory for us, so we had to adapt our design practice slightly to fit the smaller scale of these pieces. While we took inspiration from our previous work, it’s unlike anything we have ever done before and lays out the framework for future collections.’

‘The process for making Objects was much different from how we approach designing a new furniture collection,’ he continues. ‘With a chair, for example, you know the desired outcome and typically begin with a sketch before implementing materiality. With Objects, it was the opposite. We started with the material, and wanted to see what new shapes we could create that would inspire our future furniture. It was sort of like sculpting clay, but digitally, and the shapes that emerged were tweaked for functionality. It was more of a creative exploration than a formal design process.’

Each piece’s mercurial qualities are further enhanced by the use of rich, locally sourced Irish stones. The red pieces are made from Orior rouge, a limestone from Armagh and the green marble is from Connemara. The black pieces are yielded from a nero marble from Spain, while the pale yellow objects are made from Italian Giallo Sienna marble. Treated by hand to achieve a specially honed finish, the objects are intended to allow each stone’s raw beauty to shine through.

INFORMATION

The Objects range from $800 to $1,200 and will be available for purchase in the New York City Showroom and internationally through oriorfurniture.com