Tara Solid Oak Entryway Bench

Details

Tara is low, long, and pale as barley. The seat is a soft stadium shape, rounded at both ends, and underneath it the bench opens up: instead of a solid panel there is a run of almond-shaped voids cut clean through the rail, with four legs springing out of the junctions between them and tapering away to the floor. Sit down and you are on solid oak. Look at it from the far end of a hallway and you mostly see through it.

Cut, not assembled

The rail is two curved lengths of oak that swing together and apart along the bench, and the openings are simply what is left between them. The grain follows those curves instead of crossing them, which is the tell: these shapes were cut out of solid stock, not traced onto a sheet of board. The legs taper as they fall and round off near the floor, so they look drawn rather than cut to length.

The oak itself is pale and close to blonde, straight-grained, matte to the touch. It is a lighter, quieter wood than walnut, and it is what stops a bench this sculptural from feeling heavy in a small entryway.

The seat pad

An upholstered pad sits on top of the oak, held inside the wooden edge. Two options are offered, Standard and Full. In the entryway photograph the pad stops short of one end and leaves a bare shelf of oak, which is where the vase and the books have ended up. Tell us how you want yours and we will confirm what is available before you commit to anything.

From an actual workshop

One of the photographs on this page is not styled at all. It shows Tara sitting on a workbench under a concrete ceiling, paint tins on the shelves behind it, halfway through being made. That is Mehmet Ali's workshop. He was born in Konya, he has more than thirty-five years of wood behind him, and he builds every bench himself once the order comes in.

Choosing a length

Seven lengths, from 100 cm (39 inch) to 250 cm (98 inch), at a steady depth of roughly 43 cm (17 inch). The height barely changes across the range while the length more than doubles, so the short ones are a place to sit and pull your shoes on, and the long ones become part of the architecture of a hall. Measure the wall before you choose.

Getting it to you

Pieces have traveled to around twenty countries so far. Each bench is packed in protective materials and shipped worldwide with tracking. Keep the oak dry and dust it with a soft cloth. If you are fitting one into a particular hallway, send us the measurements and we will tell you which length to take.

Of the two benches, Tara is the oak one, and it sits under oak benches. The walnut counterpart is Riva, darker and warmer, opened by a single lens-shaped void rather than a run of almonds. If the same hall wants a mirror by the door, Aden is solid oak as well, standing on the floor and leaning back into the wall.