When fellow 3ringer Joseph Starr came across this chair, he insisted I tackle the product description since I had been raised Catholic. For some reason, Kranen/Gille's Fredersen London Wingchair reminded him of a confessional.

Federsen London Wingchair. Designed by Kranen and Gille.

Apparently, Mr. Starr hasn't been privy to the goings-on in the Catholic Church after Vatican II. While I did in fact suffer through a Catholic upbringing, I never had to practice confession in a bona fide confessional. I would have welcomed the privacy, being secreted behind a mesh screen, sitting in a narrow stall, hiding peacefully with my anonymity. Instead, I had to engage in face-to-face confessions-a fate that is really much worse. But back to the Netherlands, where partners Kranen and Gille devised their grandiose and fragmented Wingchair. The Fredersen London Wingchair transforms a classic furniture piece, the staid wingback, into a post-modern celebration. With its mosaic of nickel-plated steel, the Fredersen London is a pastiche of old and new. The effect is troubling and intriguing, as if one were looking at a broken mirror that creates magnificent reflections despite the superstitious bad luck. This irregularity continues in the Wingchair's black leather, which is sewn in unexpected shapes. It's as if the Fredersen London Wingchair is saying, "You recognize me, don't you," while simultaneously donning a costume for Mardi Gras.

At 85 x 95 x 110 cm, Kranen/Gille's chair is spacious and grand, quite in keeping with the wingback's reputation. Fall into it to read Millhauser's The Knife Thrower or George Perec's A Void-or even Revelations. The only church fit to receive the Fredersen London Wingchair is Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, whose spires sport mosaic fruit. Both the chair and the cathedral piece together old and new, bridging the gap between past and present (and future), high and low art, gravity and levity.