4-6 Seater MCM Extendable Dining Table by Artecasa

Fully restored 4-6 Seater Mid Century Modern extendable dining table by Artecasa 🪑 

(Johannesburg, SA - c.1950’s-80’s)

🪵 Solid Kiaat

📏 H: 74cm W: 136cm (Extended: 196cm)

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Artecasa Furniture – Peter’s Personal Favourite

South African History & Contemporary Relevance

Artecasa (Art for the Home) was established in Johannesburg in 1951 by two Italian immigrant brothers, Dino and Gianni Maraschin, who brought with them a strong European tradition of cabinetmaking and design.

The Maraschin brothers were trained within the Italian tradition of furniture making, which emphasized proportion, joinery precision, and material honesty.

Arriving in South Africa in the post-WWII period, the Maraschin brothers were part of a broader wave of European artisans and entrepreneurs who contributed significantly to the development of local manufacturing.

(Many other Italian craftsmen who found themselves at the tip of Africa at the time - were captured prisoners of war.

My late-grandfather always spoke of the magnificently constructed mountain passes we have in the Cape that were engineered & built by the Italians.

There is a special cemetery & Memorial garden en route to Cullinan from Pretoria that commemorates this community)

At a time when South Africa’s furniture market was transitioning from purely utilitarian production toward more design-conscious, modern pieces, Artecasa positioned itself at the intersection of Italian modernism and local craftsmanship.

(Many Italian designers were heavily influenced by Structural Rationalism & Monumental forms driven by  the embodiment of Pre-War Fascism. There’s an excellent documentary on this topic titled Ben Building: Mussolini, Monuments and Modernism" (2016) by Jonathan Meades for BBC)

In Johannesburg, the brothers established a factory that combined:

- European design sensibilities
- Semi-industrial production methods
- Skilled local labour

Artecasa became known for producing high-quality domestic furniture—particularly dining suites, sideboards, and cabinetry—characterised by:

- Clean, modernist lines
- Functional, extendable forms (e.g., butterfly and leaf tables)
- Careful timber selection, often using locally available hardwoods such as kiaat
- A balance between durability and refined aesthetic appeal

Their work aligned broadly with mid-century modern principles, but adapted to the South African context—both in material availability and consumer taste.

As a result, Artecasa pieces were widely distributed and became staples in middle-to upper-income homes from the 1950s through the 1980s.

They were known for hands-on involvement in production, maintaining quality control while scaling output. Their business model reflected a hybrid approach—more refined than mass-produced furniture, but more accessible than bespoke cabinetmaking.

However, like many mid-century manufacturers, the company’s prominence declined with:

- Increased imports of cheaper furniture after the lifting of sanctions

- The shift toward flat-packed and mass globalised production providing a wider consumer product offering

- And the resultant changing of consumer preferences in the late 1980s–1990s. 

(It is rumored that the supply of Kiaat also started drying up after the end of the bush war - I’ve heard that the army often supplied the local furniture manufacturing market with dirt cheap timber from the Northern Namibian & Angolan Forests)

PG