Furniture as Gesture – Collection as Manifesto
The Chisel collection, designed by Weronika Politowicz Design Studio, is a tribute to craft and an attempt to translate its language into a contemporary mode of production. The fronts, defined by their distinctive chisel-like milling, are more than mere decoration—they bear the trace of movement. A movement that once belonged to the artisan’s hand now takes place on a CNC mill: precise, repeatable, yet still imbued with intent and direction.

The collection is produced by Fabryka Mebli Hoffer, and its details are realized using modern three- and five-axis CNC routers, which allow subtle sketches and design concepts to be rendered in the language of industrial craftsmanship. It’s a transposition of the chisel’s form onto an automated tool—while preserving the core idea: sensitivity to the material, respect for its structure, and a memory of the handcrafted gesture.

The furniture forms are restrained and classical—simple volumes, standard divisions, functionality built into everyday life. Yet it is in the detail, in the tactile milled groove, that their soul is revealed. We believe that simplicity becomes noble only when it can stand up to close inspection—when the user, upon closer look, perceives the rhythm, the direction of the cut, the play of light and shadow. This conviction echoes John Ruskin’s philosophy in The Stones of Venice, where he wrote that the most beautiful forms arise when the craftsman is granted a margin of freedom—a space for his own gesture, for imperfection that makes an object truly human.

We also draw on Adolf Loos’s famous essay “Ornament and Crime” (1908), which denounced superfluous decoration as a sign of primitiveness. While we dispute the extremity of his stance, we embrace his call for responsibility—ornamentation must not be empty. In Chisel, the ornament is the function itself: the milling imparts rhythm and chiaroscuro. It becomes a mark of use.

We find inspiration in the manifestos of the Viennese Workshops and their quest to integrate art into everyday life, so that beauty is not reserved for an elite but can be found in every cabinet and every detail. In the spirit of Josef Hoffmann’s thinking, we believe that democratic design need not be inferior. We work with laminate, particleboard, and industrial foils—not by chance, but by conviction. These are materials present in daily life—and within their framework we seek to create objects that are symbolic, durable, and meaningful.

Our aesthetic also draws on contemporary design thinkers such as Tony Fry, who in Design as Politics emphasizes the designer’s responsibility to the future—toward the environment, society, and resource economies. Chisel, as a modular collection that is easy to repair or reconfigure, embodies the principles of a circular economy. It is furniture for the future—not because it is futuristic in appearance, but because it is lasting and open to change.

Chisel was born of context—social and geographical. The studio is based in Krotoszyn, a region with strong woodworking and industrial traditions. It was here, in a working workshop, that the photo shoot also took place—a space where machine and human still share the same work environment.
We believe that design is not only about creating form—it is also about forging relationships: with the user, with the material, with the place.

Chisel is our answer to the question of how to design in the real world.