Werkstätte Carl Auböck

Triangular folding side table

Austria, mid-20th century

White laminate top, wood edge, turned wood legs, nickel-plated rings

20.5 × 19.25 × 17.25 in.

Soft-triangle top in white laminate with a dark wood edge. Three turned, tapered legs cross at a single bolt and lock into nickel-plated rings fixed to a triangular subframe under the top. The legs pull free; the top stores flat. Construction matches the workshop’s known knock-down folding tables (compare model no. 3765, c. 1948: removable top, ring hardware, turned wood legs), here in a compact triangular variant rather than the published circular form.

Honest wear to the laminate, edge, and leg tips. All parts present. Excellent provenance.

Werkstätte Carl Auböck Vienna metal and object workshop, founded c. 1906–1912 by Karl Heinrich Auböck as a maker of Wiener Bronzen. Carl Auböck II (1900–1957), trained at the Weimar Bauhaus under Johannes Itten, turned the shop toward modernist brass, wood, leather, and cane objects. With his son Carl Auböck III (1924–1993)—architect, MIT-trained industrial designer, and later collaborator with Gropius and the Eames circle—the workshop won four gold medals at the 1954 Milan Triennale and supplied Hermès, Tiffany, and Neiman Marcus.

The atelier is still in the original 7th-district townhouse on Bernardgasse, now run by Carl Auböck IV and Maria Auböck. The archive holds more than 4,500 designs; small folding and occasional tables sit in that line of portable, well-made furniture.