Pica Pica | Watch Cabinet by Hendzel+Hunt.

Studio shots of Pica Pica by Jan Hendzel of Henzel+Hunt.

Pica pica was one of my favourite pieces of fine furniture I saw in Milan this year. It is a quirky little watch cabinet, made beautifully by Jan Hendzel of Hendzel+Hunt. Jan is a passionate young fella who loves chatting about his work, and he e-mailed me these fantastic pictures of the cabinet just the other day. Below are some words from Jan about the piece – I figured it was better to hear it straight from the horses mouth, rather than me paraphrasing it to you.

Jan is currently working on a bar in central London underneath the Waterloo train station, which is “going to be cool”!

x dana

I absolutely love these location shots – brilliant!

Attached is the project  I had on show in  Milan this year. I was exhibiting with designers block at Zona Isola – it was my first time exhibiting and it was a great experience. It was also my first piece of fine furniture fully designed and made in house in sunny Peckham.

Pica pica is a watch cabinet designed and produced by myself with some help in the final few weeks from my business partner Oscar. Big thanks to him.

This whimsical watch cabinet has been designed for the master dressing room of a London penthouse, the piece tests the making ability of Hendzel+Hunt featuring detailed marquetry and compound curves through out. The magpie, traditionally a collector of shiny objects in european folklore, reminds us of the hidden contents of the cabinet. Everything is made by hand in Peckham. The marquetry is laser cut as the detail involved is so fine – we achieved a really good result by running the grains in different directions and having the laser burn the edges.

The  majority of the unit is made up of european oak, and the top surface is english pippy oak which gives a lot of character. The drawers are operated by (or soon to be) an electronic switch, which will be hidden around the top surface. It will ping open the drawers and also keep them locked. It took me around 7 crazy weeks to make and will be the start of a small collection of unique and unusual pieces of furniture, all to do with the collection of objects, with each unit too tell a little story of its contents!!!!! But as the watch cabinet took me a solid 7 weeks not including all the design – the next instalment I hope will be ready for London design week.

Photography by MR Fergus Coyle.

Taxidermy by Connie Reeves.

Photos of the cabinet in the making.