Gunther Pfeffer builds pieces that straddle the line between furniture and sculpture. “I first developed my craft and then became fascinated by design,” he says. “Now I live in both worlds, but the focus is clearly on art and design. My creations develop through poetry, reduction, precision, and rhythm.”

Pfeffer works in Bavaria in a shop built by his grandfather, who was a window and door maker. Out of high school, Pfeffer apprenticed with a company building interiors for mega-yachts and then attended the wood program at a small, rigorous, highly regarded school in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

After returning to the yacht company and working as a master cabinetmaker for three years, he decided to enroll again to study for a master’s degree in design that encompassed architecture, interiors, furniture, and objects. That experience “opened a new world to me,” he says. “It was the starting point for what I do now—building unique pieces from my own ideas.”

His gridded display cabinet, built as a series of three stacking trays, each composed of strips that are half-lapped and mitered, illustrates his very personal approach to design. “I like to develop construction with fine details,” he says, “to slightly reinvent the traditional.”

And he wants his pieces to provoke interaction. In a typical glass showcase, you can see the contents from any angle. In this cabinet, with its gridded structure, Pfeffer explains, “you don’t see the contents at first glance, but only when you look directly from the front, sides, or back. Everything now is available in seconds—Google it! I wanted a piece you must engage with, then you are rewarded.”

Picture perfect

Pfeffer is passionate about photography as well as furniture, and his black-and-white cabinet was designed to store camera gear. Its color scheme and its panel with a field of tiny pyramids reference the light, shadows, and contrast that are so key to photography.

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