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Trade terms for professionals and design studios
A metal channel runs right round the base of President, behind its doors, and links all ten boxes set into the top. It comes as standard, and the base is already prepared for the cables to pass. Each box is reached along the perimeter rather than from one point in the middle, which is what the person wiring the room notices first. On conference tables of this length, it is the part that keeps the cabling in order.
Open a box and there are two universal sockets, a Schuko, USB-A and USB-C, a 3.5 mm audio jack, HDMI and two RJ45 ports; a lid covered in leather closes it again. The cables themselves are excluded, so they are chosen for the equipment that will actually sit in the room. Behind the doors the inner frame is black melamine, while the doors come in veneer or melamine and can be covered in leather. In a board's own meeting room the technology can change and the table stays.
President is a design by the i4Mariani research and development team, 2015, made by i4Mariani in Mariano Comense. It measures 600 × 210 cm, 74 cm high (236¼ × 82⅝ × 29⅛ in), in four top versions: leather with a rosewood-type centre or a melamine one, or veneer or melamine around a leather centre. It is ordered exactly as shown or, on request, in other sizes, materials and accessories. La Mercanti walks the cable route with the client's AV installer before the room is wired.
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Each of the boxes in the top has a lid covered in leather, so when it is shut the surface reads as one material rather than a row of metal fittings. For a boardroom that also hosts visitors or formal signings, that matters: the table looks the same whether the sockets are needed or not, and the lids open only where someone is working.
The catalogue gives a 35 mm (1⅜ in) panel with chamfered edges, either veneered or in melamine and, on the leather versions, covered. Along a table six metres long the side profile is what people see first as they come in; the chamfer keeps it light and carries the leather to the edge without a sharp arris under the forearms.
The leather comes from three i4Mariani collections: Privilege, Harmonie and Vegetale, the last with the Dakota, Holiday and Nevada lines. Each has its own range of colours, so the choice is worth making with samples in hand and next to the veneer or melamine that will frame the leather on the top.
The standard veneer is a rosewood type finished with a filled-pore lacquer at 20 gloss: a closed, satin surface that shows the figure of the grain without a mirror shine. Other veneers can be requested. On a surface this large, a low sheen also keeps reflections from windows and pendant lights under control.
Yes. The doors are made in veneer or melamine to match the top and, as the technical sheet states, they can also be covered in leather. On the leather-led versions this carries the material down to the floor line, so the table reads as one object from across the room; La Mercanti shows the door and the top samples together before the finish is fixed.
A table this size is planned with the room around it. Five checks on footprint, clearance, light and finishes help place President properly before the order is placed.
President measures 600 × 210 cm and stands 74 cm high (236¼ × 82⅝ × 29⅛ in). Draw that rectangle to scale on the floor plan, or tape it out on site, and look at what remains on every side: the table is fixed as standard, the room is not.
Around the table people need space to push their chairs back and a route behind those who are seated, above all along the two long sides. If the room is tight, the maker offers other sizes on request, and it is better to know that before the drawing is signed off.
A top six metres long picks up every window and pendant. The rosewood-type veneer is lacquered with filled pores at 20 gloss, so it reads satin; leather absorbs the light altogether. Judge the version of the top in the room's real light, at the hour the board actually meets.
There are four versions: leather with a rosewood or melamine centre, or rosewood or melamine with a leather centre. Where the room already has timber panelling or cabinets, the veneer or melamine of the table should be chosen to sit comfortably with those surfaces.
The leather comes from the Privilege, Harmonie and Vegetale collections. The maker notes that the size of the individual cuts can vary noticeably with the category chosen, so on a top this long the category is best judged on a real sample, beside the veneer.
