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Cork Low Stool
SUSTAINABLY PRODUCED AND FLEXIBLE IN USE
Emerging from a collaboration between architects Herzog & de Meuron and artist Ai Weiwei for London's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in 2012, the Corker Series combines artistic ingenuity with practical design. Inspired by the familiar silhouette of a wine bottle cork, Corker reinterprets everyday culture by scaling a common object into a design icon. Jacques Herzog describes its creation as natural and almost naive, rooted in the team's desire for flexible, intuitive furniture within the pavilion’s archaeological concept.
The Serpentine Pavilion explored themes of archaeology and memory, built around the remnants of the gallery’s previous eleven pavilions. Ai Weiwei and Herzog & de Meuron approached their design as an excavation, "digging down some five feet into the soil of the park until we reach the groundwater," revealing layers of historical context, from buried cables to former pavilion foundations. This interaction between visible and hidden realities inspired Corker's conceptual depth and tactile appeal.
In 2022, ClassiCon brought Corker into production with a focus on sustainability and craftsmanship. Produced from sustainably harvested Portuguese cork, Corker offers inviting tactility while embodying environmental responsibility - fully recyclable and built to last. Jacques Herzog highlights the warmth and ergonomic comfort of cork, noting its supportive seating quality that encourages healthy posture.
Versatile in application - whether a stool, or a side table - Corker exemplifies Herzog & de Meuron’s original vision: accessible design that is environmentally conscious and timelessly elegant.
Stool or side table. Dark cork with impregnation, milled from one block.
Dimensions
Model No. 1 - Diameter 38cm (14 15/16”), H. 38cm (14 15/16”)
Model No. 2 - Diameter 50cm (19 5/8”), H. 40cm (15 3/4”)
Model No. 3 - Diameter 47cm (18 1/2”), H. 48cm (18 7/8”)
DESIGNEr
Herzog & De Meuron
Herzog & De Meuron
Cork Low Stool
Herzog [&] de Meuron was founded in 1978 by the two architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron in Basel. Today, the office is managed by the two founders together with the senior partners Christine Binswanger, Ascan Mergenthaler, Stefan Marbach, Esther Zusteg, and Jason Frantzen. An international team of almost 500 employees, including the two founders, five senior partners, ten partners, and 41 associates is working on projects across Europe, North and South America, and Asia. Herzog [&] de Meuron’s headquarters are located in Basel, with branch offices in London, New York, Hong Kong, Berlin and Copenhagen. The renowned office has designed a large palette of projects that range in scale from private homes to urban planning. Many of the projects are public institutions such as museums, stadiums and hospitals, including the Tate Gallery of Modern Art in London, the M+ Museum for Visual Culture in Hong Kong, the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), the Allianz Arena in Munich and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.
MANUFACTURER
CLASSICON
Good furniture is like a good friend: somebody we like to have around and who accompanies us through life, wherever it may take us. We have been producing this kind of furniture since 1990. At the time, ClassiCon emerged from the traditional Vereinigte Werkstätten in Munich.
The licenses for the designs by famous designers of classic modernism, including Eileen Gray, Eckart Muthesius and Otto Blümel, formed the cornerstone for today’s collection. Soon, furniture by contemporary designers such as Sebastian Herkner, Neri & Hu, Konstantin Grcic and Jader Almeida followed. From the beginning, ClassiCon intentionally created a suspenseful relationship between classics and contemporary design. Owner Oliver Holy has had a lasting impact on the family-run company with his passion for design, architecture and art for almost 20 years now. Since mid-2024, he and CEO Timotheus Günak have been jointly managing ClassiCon.
Design, function and quality at the highest level plus a good amount of emotion – this is our vision: furniture design that convinces and accompanies people through their lives, something reliable and beautiful that is used and appreciated and, in the best case, passed down.
How much spirit of departure does a piece of furniture contain? At ClassiCon, you will only find innovative furniture that expresses the courage to depart from familiar ground. Some of the pieces carry big names, and each can look back on a proud design history, sometimes over several decades or even an entire century. Others, however, are only at the beginning of writing their own big stories.
We consider it our task to accompany and enable a multitude of such stories – now and in the future. For this purpose, we are continuously expanding our partner network and engage in intensive dialogs with international designers, often young and unknown.
Local craft businesses that bring design ideas to life through their skills and expertise play an equally important role for us. Through our production methods, we aim to bring this craftsmanship and wealth of experience to light and secure it for the future.
Designs from the ClassiCon collection can be found in museum collections around the world. Rare and precious originals by Eileen Gray, for example, are owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the National Museum of Ireland and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In the meantime, designs by our contemporary designers have found a place in collections: classics of the future are exhibited or archived in various contexts. They represent formal innovation, originality and quality. With each selection, we are delighted about the success of the designers and the confirmation of our work.
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