This year, the Finnish company Artek, and at the same time its special technique of working with wood, celebrates its 80th anniversary. In addition, they are united by the fact that both of them are the brainchild of the famous Alvar Aalto. The company celebrated the milestone with the renewal of the Domus chair, its iconic product, and the opening of a spacious new flagship store in Helsinki.
Iittala, a manufacturer of glass products and a long-standing partner of the brand, expressed its respect for the solid anniversary by launching the famous vases from Maestro Aalto in gray.
Probably, unable to stop, the Finnish company is preparing to release a series of equally famous L-leg chairs with new finishes. The range of materials promises to be diverse: from leather to lacquered wood and linoleum.
As soon as everyone who was somehow involved in the celebration turned to the classics, we will also turn around and look at the year of birth of the above-mentioned masterpiece, in 1933, when Artek was just an unformed idea tormenting the minds of several young idealists. Let this be our way of raising a glass to 80 years of impeccable design.
The very design of the L-leg saw the light of day in the course of Aalto’s experiments with various wood bending techniques, which were not mastered by anyone in those distant years. Together with furniture manufacturer Otto Korhonen, the designer has developed the perfect combination of key operations for working with birch plywood – trimming and steaming. They made it possible to make the material malleable, while maintaining its strength.
As we know, a lot of time has passed since then, but the technique has basically remained the same: at the end of a piece of wood soaked in water, vertical cuts are made, at a distance of several millimeters from one another; The deeper the incision, the greater the bend. These slots are then glued with thin strips of veneer to increase the strength of the workpiece.
Aalto had a premonition of the success of the L-leg he created: from the very beginning, he dubbed it “the younger sister of the architectural column”. It was originally designed for the Stool 60 stool, but later became a key element of the entire Artek collection.
The beauty of this detail gives rise to its versatility: it can be used in the design of any chairs, armchairs and even tables. Since obtaining a patent for this product in the 30s, hundreds of different variations have been created on its basis.
The technique itself motivated many authors to experiment with other materials, such as steel, and this is confirmed by the Kaari furniture collection presented last year, on which the designers of the aforementioned Finnish company worked together with the Burullek brothers.
In an aesthetic sense, all sorts of curves have become the defining features of Artek products: flipping through the company’s catalog for 2016, you will find that almost every item presented in it carries a respectful mention of Aalto’s breakthrough.
L-leg is the embodiment of the brand’s philosophy, which consists in the desire to combine technology with art and to be true ambassadors and pioneers of Scandinavian design, whose fans are probably among you, dear readers.
