Design gifts

Everything here is made from a rule rather than a decoration: a repeating tile, a city grid, a warped lattice, a curve that returns to itself. That is what makes them work as gifts. They are quiet enough to live in someone else’s home, and they hold up to being looked at for years.

Designed in Berlin by Gunnar Rönsch and Steve Molloy, two architects. Precision-milled in Italy, assembled in Berlin — a good deal of it in a workshop that employs people with disabilities.

Under €30 — the brass pieces

Small, flat, heavier than they look. These are the ones people keep on a desk and use every day.

• Roma – Bookmark — Giambattista Nolli’s 1736 map of Rome, cut into brass and centred on the Vatican.
• Manhattan – Bookmark — Central Park, seen from above.
• Penrose – Pen Tray — the Penrose tiling, milled in Italy and folded into shape in Berlin.
• Penrose – 2 Coasters — the same pattern, in a pair.
• Push – Jewelry Bowl — arrives flat. Whoever receives it presses it into shape with their thumbs, so no two finish the same.
• Cloud – Desk Tidy — solid brass, overlapping dot patterns that shimmer as you move past. Ships flat and folds together in about twenty seconds.

€30 to €100 — the pieces that change the light

• Gravity – Tealight Holder — a warped steel grid. With a flame inside, it reads differently from every angle.
• Hover – Heat Stand — a disc that sits a measured distance above the table, just far enough to cast a shadow.
• Rainbow – Candleholder — lead crystal with a dichroic film across each facet. The spectrum shifts as the flame moves.
• Push – Catch All — the larger Push, for keys and the contents of a pocket.
• Liquid — a wall-mounted candleholder in reclaimed steel, made with J. MAYER H.

Over €100 — when it is meant to be the only gift

• Gravity – Tray — the warped grid at table scale.
• Rainbow – Angle Vase — cut crystal, built around a single stem.
• Drops – Candelabra — four crystal spheres set into a solid block, bonded so a shift of colour shows at every joint.
• Gravity – Centerpiece — the piece the Centre Pompidou commissioned its own colourway of.

If you know what they do for a living

Two narrower guides, for when a general gift will not do: gifts for architects and designers, and gifts made in Berlin.

Or browse by budget: under €50, under €100, corporate gifting.

All of it is in the shop at Ackerstraße 1a in Berlin-Mitte, Monday to Friday, if you would rather weigh it in your hand first.