OBJECTS Interiors and the Art of Furniture Design Jan Kotěra (1871–1923) Dining room suite for the publisher Jan Laichter, 1907–1908 Prague This ensemble is also the work of Jan Kotěra, even though he never in fact felt comfortable with the Organic style and rejected it shortly after 1900. The focus of his creative output shifted towards a rational, modern idiom. Nonetheless, this artist cannot be aligned with exponents of the geometric Vienna Secession. An admirer of Antiquity, Kotěra regarded its forms and style to be the nucleus of architecture, and his oeuvre, especially in its later stages, bears distinctly Neoclassical Art Nouveau features. Such is the case with the dining room suite he designed for his friend Jan Laichter, a publisher. A massive oak table with an extension top and set on a central pedestal was placed in the centre and was surrounded by club chairs with horseshoe-shaped backrests. The sideboard, with its horizontally extended upper section modelled after the French Renaissance dressoirs, has a built-in clock with a relief depicting Chronos that was designed by Stanislav Sucharda. Upon opening the lateral wings, delicate inlay work appears to the viewer, featuring an imaginary landscape with a lake whose mirrored surface reflects the surrounding trees.