BH | Studio Pienza Tall Cabinet

The sideboard's Italian name, credenza, recalls the Renaissance dining room, where a side cabinet held dishes before they reached the table. Pienza, rebuilt in the fifteenth century as an ideal town around an orderly piazza and measured façades, shows how deeply Italian design has always loved proportion. A calm grid of wood answers that taste, and the same quiet lattice runs through Japanese screens and modern cabinetmaking alike.

This tall cabinet stands on a shallow plinth, its two full-height doors laid out in a grid of pale wood with a woven panel in every square. A light press opens them and they close flush, so the front stays clean and handle-free. It is built on a wood frame with a natural veneer. Inside are four shelves, one of them adjustable for tall jars or bottles, each rated to 57 lbs. Non-marking glides sit underneath, and it is assembled at home.

Stand it in a kitchen that has run out of cupboards as a pantry for flour, pasta, tins and cereal, or in a dining room for the dishes, glassware and serving pieces that only come out for guests. At the end of a hall it swallows linen and board games, and in a bathroom it stores towels. The light wood keeps a tall piece airy; pair it with paper lanterns, stoneware and a single branch in a vase.