The British mathematician Roger Penrose (born in 1931) invented non-periodic tilings in 1974, which later turned out to be models for the structure of quasicrystals. Their asymmetrical shapes have inspired designers such as the duo Ich&Kar (Héléna Ichbiah and Piotr Karczewski). Fascinated by the language of mathematics, and giving pride of place in their creations to geometric quirks, they set out to reinterpret Penrose's spectacular tilings as a collection of objects.

Marquetry tables from the Penrose collection.