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Antiques Firm Mallett Commissions a CollectionDesignBy KATE TAYLOR The popularity of contemporary art and design has been bad news for antiques dealers. While many dealers have responded by moving into 20th-century design, one firm, Mallett, is going a step further by actually commissioning new pieces. Under the name Meta, Mallett has come out with an inaugural collection of 11 pieces, by five major designers. 
Click for multi-image slideshow > Ben Parker TOP IS BLOWN Gallery assistant Mike Coons sets up Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby's reading table 'Cupola.' "If Hepplewhite and Chippendale could do it in the 18th century," the president of Mallett, Henry Neville, said, referring to the furniture makers Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite, "why can't [we] in the 21st?" The pieces in Meta's first collection are all eye-catching. Among them are a slumped-glass coffee table by Asymptote, a futuristic reading table by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, and a "Fig Leaf" wardrobe by Tord Boontje. But if one of the virtues of contemporary design is its accessibility, Meta may have slightly overshot in its use of bespoke materials and esoteric techniques. A ceiling lamp designed by Matali Crasset, for example, is made of paktong, "a nearly extinct metal of Chinese origin," according to Meta's literature. In order to re-create the metal, a scraping was taken from an 18th-century Chinese candlestick; then, "[u]sing electron probe microanalysis with wavelength dispersive spectrometry, the elements were detected and analysed by Dr. Peter Northover of Oxford University's Archeological Materials Science Unit." Is this furniture or a chemistry dissertation? Mallett has a shop uptown on Madison Avenue, but since the firm hopes that Meta will appeal to young collectors, it is showcasing the collection for a week, starting tomorrow, at the Openhouse Gallery, on Mulberry Street in NoLIta. The installation is designed by Jules Wright, a theater director and the creator of The Wapping Project, a visual and performing arts center in London. Prices range from $20,000 to $700,000. Openhouse Gallery, 201 Mulberry St., between Spring and Kenmare streets, 212-334-0288. 
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