Dining table by Jorge Zalszupin

Born in Warsaw in 1922, Jorge Zalszupin arrived in Brazil in 1949 and founded L'Atelier in São Paulo — a studio that gave him full control over design and production. He worked alongside Niemeyer and Burle Marx, furnishing the buildings that defined Brazilian modernism at its peak.

The Guanabara, designed in 1959, is his most celebrated table. A patchwork of Brazilian rosewood veneers — arranged to expose the full tonal range of the wood — rests on a single concrete base wrapped in black leather. The technique was both practical and visionary: nothing wasted, nothing unconsidered. Named after Rio's great bay, it remains one of the most quietly radical tables in 20th-century design.