If you thought IKEA furniture was difficult to assemble, designer Rupert McKelvie’s aptly titled Missing Pieces table will make you think twice. The UK-based artist’s custom creation utilizes puzzle pieces from box sets with an insufficient number of pieces. Instead of getting frustrated with the hours put into piecing each puzzle together, only to find that he’s incapable of finishing the jigsaw, the designer says, “I have decided to put together a collection of furniture that will use these neglected games, these incomplete puzzles, to create something new and complete.”
McKelvie’s jigsaw furniture, which took hundreds of hours to construct, is comprised of approximately 4,800 individual pieces. It is a reminder of a time before the digital age filled with fast-paced computer and mobile games. It is a symbolic representation of diligence and time spent on a recreational project. Puzzles are now seen as an archaic form of entertainment. As such, McKelvie’s table is a sort of relic for future historians to decode.
