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The study at home has a life of its own: a sofa, a bookcase, a rug someone chose years ago. Noah was designed to move into that room without asking it to change. The maker presents it as the executive desk for the home, a small piece of architecture that creates a real place to work while respecting the furniture already there. It belongs with our contemporary desks for executives, with one difference: it was drawn for a house.
What it brings is the full equipment of a director's office in 86⅝ × 41⅜ in. On the side where you sit, four drawers plus a small cabinet meant for paperwork and a computer; on the side your visitor sees, open book shelving and doors wrapped in leather or saddle leather. The veneered desktop carries a writing pad in leather, a pair of solid-wood pen trays set into it and a built-in Qi charger. Among desks with a leather top, Noah takes the leather further: it also wraps the sides of both cabinets.
Umberto Asnago put his name to it in 2021, and i4Mariani makes it in Mariano Comense, the workshop the Mariani brothers opened in 1957. The range is simple to read: a single size in four versions, Canaletto walnut or graphite ash, either one available with a crossed-grain veneer, along with a matching desk organizer and, if you want it, a cable access flap. Before suggesting a version, La Mercanti asks for a photo of the room where the desk will stand.
Let us know which finishes you'd like to explore
Yes, on request. As standard, i4Mariani offers two: graphite-stained ash with an open-pore finish and figured Canaletto walnut with a wax-look finish, both at 0 gloss, which means a fully matte surface. Any other finish is a special request to the maker, to be agreed before the order is confirmed; La Mercanti raises it with i4Mariani on your behalf.
There can be. A cable flap integrated into the desktop is available as an option, so computer and lamp cords drop out of sight below the surface. Your phone needs no cord at all, since a Qi wireless charger is built into the top. Fix the desk's position before ordering, so the flap ends up on the side closest to the outlet.
It gives the desk its outline. The top is an asymmetric rectangle, with one short side and one long side set at an angle, and the maker says the shape is there to give the piece visual lightness. In practice an 86⅝ in desk reads less like a block and more like a drawn object, and the leather edge follows that same uneven line all the way round.
The narrower one, on the left, has a leather-wrapped door facing the visitor and a veneered door on your side, meant for files and a laptop. The wider one, on the right, carries open shelves for books facing the visitor and four drawers on your side. Both are black melamine with their sides always wrapped in leather or saddle leather, so the desk looks finished from every angle.
They belong to the Luxe collection, in leather rather than saddle leather. The prints include Cities, Women and 70's, with Birds and Patagonia also in the range. A print can cover the writing pad, the edges, the doors and the cabinet sides, so on Noah it becomes a large surface: choose it on a physical swatch, not a screen.
Noah has storage in the desktop, on the side where you sit and on the side your visitor faces. Five steps to give every item its place, from pens to books, before the desk fills up.
Noah has two small trays in solid wood recessed into the thickness of the top, beneath the leather writing pad. Use them for pens, a stamp and the small things you reach for all day, and the surface above stays clear for paper and a laptop.
On your side, the wider cabinet holds four drawers in veneered plywood with solid-wood pulls. Sort them by how often you open them: today's files at the top, reference papers lower down, and the bottom drawer for what you keep but rarely need.
The narrower cabinet, also on your side, has a small veneered door that i4Mariani specifies for paperwork and a PC. At the end of the day the laptop and its charger go in there, and the desk is clear when the room is used for something else.
On the opposite side, the wider cabinet opens into shelves for books. This is what someone sitting across from you sees, so give it volumes and objects you are happy to show; working papers stay behind the leather-wrapped doors next to it.
For whatever must stay on the surface there is a matching desk organizer, 26¾ in long, in the same wood and the same saddle leather or leather as the desk. It gathers loose items in one line and leaves the rest of the writing pad free.
