Smoke Column "cabinet"

Designers: Sarah Keenlyside, with Pauline Gironi

Smoke Column is a speculative, freestanding sculptural cabinet by artist Sarah Keenlyside, with digital graphic collaboration by Pauline Gironi, that subverts the anatomy of the commercial cigarette pack, transforming it into a piece of radical furniture.

Presented as a 1:1 exploratory prototype for Dutch Design Week, the monolithic tower of drawers utilizes a flat vertical stack. By isolating and replacing brand names with the evocative descriptors found on cigarette packaging—such as true, smooth, light, and lucky—the exterior presents a graphic composition, combining the bold geometric lines and colours of mid-century packaging design with intricate, hand-painted cigarette textures.

The piece stands in direct dialogue with the anti-functionalist lineage of Ettore Sottsass's iconic 1965 Commode Column and his other early 1960s Mobili a Torre (Tower Furniture) exploratory concepts. In a modern nod to Sottsass's signature bulls-eye concentric knobs, the drawers are fitted with authentic car cigarette lighters, turning the tactile act of opening a drawer into a cheeky, pop-art gesture. Ultimately, Smoke Column shifts the cigarette pack from a micro-vessel of personal consumption into a macro, architectural monument to the allure and rituals of smoking culture.

Designers’ bios:

Sarah Keenlyside is a Canadian artist, creative director, and designer based in Turin, Italy. Her multi-disciplinary work resists categorization, but usually focuses on high-concept narrative environments, interior curation, non-fiction and experimental video, and the material culture of everyday life. Driven by a rigorous pursuit of hyper-detail and conceptual clarity she leads the conceptual direction, fabrication, and execution of Smoke Column.

The installation’s digital graphic identity was developed in collaboration with Pauline Gironi, a French multidisciplinary designer based in Berlin whose work spans event design, furniture design, and graphic experimentation. Keenlyside and Gironi met while studying design at a school in Milan.

Materials used: cardboard, wood veneer, acrylic paint, varnish, car cigarette lighters

Measurements: 150 cm x  45 cm

Prototype: 1800€ / Fully realized cabinet, edition of 3, price upon request