Behind The Design | The Pedrera Coffee Table by GUBI

The Pedrera Coffee Table began life in one of Barcelona's most famous buildings. In the 1950s, the architect Barba Corsini was converting the attic of Antoni Gaudí's Casa Milà, known locally as La Pedrera, into thirteen modern apartments, and he designed the furniture for those rooms alongside the architecture. The coffee table he drew for them took the building's name.

This year GUBI has reimagined the design with a top of structured glass. The slender steel frame remains as Corsini drew it, while the glass above is rippled on its underside and smooth on top. Light passes through the texture in shifting patterns, and the frame beneath is half hidden and half revealed, depending on where you stand. The new tops come in three tones: Transparent, Smoke and Bronze.

The structured glass Pedrera is now on display at our Armadale showroom, where you can see the ripple of the glass in person.

A Table Drawn for La Pedrera

GUBI writes that Corsini shared Gaudí's belief that straight lines do not exist in nature, and the Pedrera holds to it: a slender V-shaped steel frame carries a rounded glass top with no corners at all.

Dated to 1955, the table belongs to the same moment as the attic apartments it was made for. GUBI describes the design as "sculptural yet light, rational yet organic".

Shaped by Heat and Gravity

GUBI has the structured glass tops made in Italy using a traditional glass-fusing technique. A flat sheet of glass is heated in a kiln until it sags under its own weight into a handmade mould. No pressure is applied; the form comes from heat and gravity alone. Once cooled, the glass is tempered for strength.

The mould gives the underside its ripple and leaves the top smooth. Viewed from above, GUBI writes, the effect recalls ripples on water.

Colour Through the Glass

The colour sits inside the glass itself. Trace amounts of colourant oxides are added to the molten material, so the tint runs right through rather than resting on the surface as a coating. The glass keeps its natural clarity, and the colour will not wear away with use.

The Designer: Barba Corsini

Francisco Juan Barba Corsini (1916 to 2008) qualified as an architect in Barcelona in 1943 and opened his own studio two years later. GUBI describes him as a leading functionalist who won international praise for his architecture and for his work at La Pedrera. From 1966 he also taught architectural design at the school where he had trained.

He looked to Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright, and held Finnish architecture to be the finest in Europe for its "powerful simplicity". GUBI calls that phrase an apt description of his own style. His buildings range from apartment blocks across Barcelona to Binibeca, a village on Menorca built in the 1960s on local building traditions.

The table's return began with Joaquim Ruiz Millet, founder of Galeria H2O in Barcelona. During the restoration of La Pedrera he saved one of Corsini's original floor lamps from being thrown away, then worked with Corsini, as his protégé, to bring the designs back to the public. The table was re-edited under his supervision in 1991.

About GUBI

GUBI describes itself as "the global design house where timeless modern icons and the creative talents of today meet and mingle." Based in Copenhagen, it works with design studios around the world on new pieces and brings classic designs back into production.

The Pedrera is one of those classics. GUBI relaunched it in 2010, and the structured glass tops arrived in 2026 as part of its Spring collection.