Hidden Game Boards Give These Italian Tables More Than One Purpose

Header: Ciro by Bottega Ghianda, photo by Daniele Cortese

Ciro and Bassano da Gioco are two handmade game tables, the first in ebony and the second in wood and bronze, designed to host multiple board games, from chess and checkers to backgammon. Bottega Ghianda made Ciro, a solid-wood furniture workshop on Lake Como, and its sister company, Promemoria, made Bassano da Gioco; both now belong to Romeo Sozzi.

The two companies

Promemoria (Italian for “reminder”) was founded in the late 1980s by Romeo Sozzi in Valmadrera, a village on Lake Como, having grown out of his family’s workshop, which restored carriages for the local aristocracy. Its mission, in the company’s own words, is “remembering the past to improve the future”, and most of what it makes today is custom or produced in limited editions.

In 2015, after the death of Pierluigi Ghianda, Sozzi took over the workshop that the Ghianda family had managed in the Brianza area since the 19th century, renaming it Bottega Ghianda (bottega being Italian for “workshop”). It had made furniture for Hermès and worked with designers such as Gio Ponti, Gae Aulenti and Ettore Sottsass, and it still makes its pieces by hand in solid wood.

Ciro by Bottega Ghianda

Ciro is made of ebony and is supported by four light legs, with a backgammon board being inlaid on its main top. Its removable surfaces, meanwhile, can be lifted off to reveal four more games: checkers, chess, Xiangqi (Chinese chess) and the Game of the Goose (a race game played along a spiral of numbered squares).

The boards were inlaid in maple, pearwood and mahogany, with small pieces of wood being cut and set into the surface to form each pattern. As for the game pieces, they were made from the same woods as the table itself.

Bassano da Gioco by Promemoria

Bassano da Gioco (Italian for “Bassano for playing”) was designed by Romeo Sozzi as part of the Bassano family, a series of tables that have become some of Promemoria’s bestsellers. Like the rest of the family, its wooden top is supported by a single curved leg, which, in this case, was made in bronze.

The table was designed for chess, checkers, dominoes and backgammon, with folding boards, domino tiles and chess pieces having been carved in maple and ebony. To store the pieces, a removable shelf covered in leather was added to one side, and, if desired, the table can also be fitted with a board for international checkers (played on 100 squares).

“In a meaningful life, there must always be time and space for play.”

Promemoria

Project information

Furniture Design Companies: Bottega Ghianda, Promemoria
Lead Designer: Romeo Sozzi
Photography: Daniele Cortese
Location: Valmadrera, Italy