Housed within the stunning surroundings of Ladbroke Hall in West London, Carpenters continues to blur the boundaries between collectible design, contemporary art and traditional craftsmanship.
Its latest programme heralds six exhibitions along with a brand new subterranean space. Sculptural bronze furniture, molten glassworks, sacred memory trees and ceramics feature across the exhibitions below:
DISSENT: Notes from Underground
13th October – 19th December
Marking the inauguration of a new subterranean exhibition space, Dissent: Notes from Underground brings together an international roster of designers and artists to cut the ribbon.
Among the highlights is Spanish artist Nacho Carbonell’s Dune Cabinet, an organic construction inspired by desert landscapes, while American furniture designer Wendell Castle’s Suspended Disbelief is a four-metre-long sculptural seating work in stained ash wood. Elsewhere, Vincenzo De Cotiis combines onyx and recycled fibreglass in his DC2349 Desk, while Pieter Maes explores contrasts in tactility through an elongated shearling-upholstered sofa. Featuring further contributions from Maarten Baas, Ingrid Donat, Martin Laforêt, Wonmin Park, Robert Stadler and Charles Trevelyan, the exhibition celebrates unconventional approaches to collectible design.
Subversion
Vincent Dubourg: Blue Weather
17th September – 19th December
French designer Vincent Dubourg sees furniture as an extended expression of both its designer and exhibitor. In Blue Weather, his latest exhibition at Carpenters, bronze, wood and aluminium are transformed into sculptural compositions whose fluid forms are captured at a point of perfect stasis.
Drawing on Constructivism and Brutalism, Dubourg takes familiar forms and subjects them to unexpected structural transformations. Among the highlights are the Organic Table, Himself 1 and Himself 4, in which polished white-bronze surfaces sit atop intricate Movingui wood structures. Elsewhere, the Stonehenge Armchair and accompanying ottoman reinterpret the ancient monument’s distinctive post-and-lintel construction as functional furniture.
Metamorphosis
František Vízner: Beyond the Vessel
17th September – 19th December
A celebration of one of the most distinctive figures in twentieth-century studio glass, Beyond the Vessel explores the work of Czech artist and designer František Vízner (1936–2011). Throughout his career, Vízner pursued the refinement of a single craft, using glasswork to explore the relationship between geometry and light.
The exhibition brings together sculptural bowls and vessels produced from the late 1980s onwards, showcasing his extraordinary ability to derive elegance from simplicity. Using a painstaking cutting technique, Vízner would remove material from solid blocks of glass, approaching the process more like a sculptor workingwith marble than a traditional glassmaker. Richly coloured examples, including Bowl Dark Red and Bowl Oval Pink, demonstrate his fascination with the optical qualities of glass, while his later opaque black pieces mark a shift towards a more solid, sculptural aesthetic.
Refraction
Anne Holtrop: Low-relief
13th October – 19th December 2026
Dutch architect Anne Holtrop makes his debut with Carpenters through Low-relief, an exhibition of three new functional artworks in cast glass. Known for an artistic practice that leans into her background in architecture, Holtrop is particularly interested in how materials can register the conditions of their surroundings.
The new works are made by pouring molten glass into graphite moulds, allowing it to cool into weighty but transparent forms. The resulting pieces, presented as functional tables, explore the interplay between light and space and. Rather than treating glass as a perfectly controlled, transparent surface, Holtrop embraces its irregularities and the traces left behind by the casting process. The exhibition offers an intriguing look at how an architectural approach can be translated into collectible design.
Imprint
Thukral & Tagra: Arboretum
13th October – 19th December
For their first exhibition with Carpenters, New Delhi-based artist duo Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra turn their attention to the natural world. Arboretum brings together paintings and brass sculptures, exploring trees as repositories of memory, mythology, history and cultural knowledge.
Inspired by a 5,000-year-old tamarind tree at the Adinatha Perumal Temple in Tamil Nadu, the works draw on the artists’ encounters with sacred trees, alongside personal histories of migration and farming in Punjab. Paintings are integrated with brass sculptural forms, combining traditional craftsmanship with industrial processes to create an imagined botanical garden. The result is a body of work that draws connections between nature and cultural identity.
Roots
Gareth Mason: Flights of Fancy
13th October – 19th December
British ceramicist Gareth Mason has spent four decades pushing the boundaries of the traditional vessel. In Flights of Fancy, seven new works demonstrate his distinctive approach, combining wheel-thrown and free-form construction with multiple firings and experimental glazing.
Working with porcelain, stoneware and thermally transformed granite, Mason embraces the unpredictable nature of his materials. Cracked distortions and other unexpected interventions become integral to the finished works. Pieces such as Dolomea and Obsidra combine familiar vessel-like silhouettes with fractured rims, embedded granite and richly textured surfaces. The resulting objects, both functional and abstract, make for a captivating exhibition.
Alchemy
All imagery courtesy of Carpenters at Ladbroke Hall © Benjamin Baccarani
