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Aug 03, 2023

How Artek’s Stool 60 Became a Humble Icon

Its wooden form may have stood the test of time, but around the moment of Stool 60’s creation – tubular steel was the must-have material in furniture design. Marcel Breuer had become one of the first

Its wooden form may have stood the test of time, but around the moment of Stool 60’s creation – tubular steel was the must-have material in furniture design.

Marcel Breuer had become one of the first designers to have constructed a chair from the shiny material and had made it a huge hit among furniture fanatics, who felt its perfectly curved angles offered a view to the future.

But for Alvar Aalto – who was a fan of Breuer’s work and even had Cantilever Chairs in his own home – something about living amongst metal didn’t feel right. Instead, his belief was that human bodies work in better harmony alongside natural materials, and as such, our furniture should be crafted from wood. This could, of course, have been partly due to his surroundings and upbringing. He was Finnish and living and working in his home country – which is famously made up of two-thirds forests. But the realization more specifically came from time spent designing a tuberculosis sanatorium in Paimio, Southwest Finland.

“There, Alvar and his wife Aino came to the conclusion that the human body should not be in direct touch with metal,” explains Marianne Goebl, Artek’s managing director. “They felt the human body should be in touch with something that’s warm, friendly, and tactile, but also something we all have an innate relationship with.”

Archive Images Of Early Stool 60’s

Archive Images Of Early Stool 60’s

Archive Images Of Early Stool 60’s

At their core, though, the Aaltos were modernists, and believed in using industrial processes to make good design commonplace. It was a manifesto that the Artek brand, founded together with Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl, was built on.

Nothing sums up the core beliefs of Alvar Aalto like the Stool 60. It perfectly embodied his design principles and was a simple item made from a then-groundbreaking material, which ultimately gave birth to a new design language.

The meticulous craftsmanship that goes into making Artek’s Stool 60 is as integral to its legacy as its final form. The 48-step production journey begins with sustainably sourced birch logs, which are carefully selected for their grain and quality. These logs are laminated, and used to create a circular sheet and the signature L-shaped legs.

The Production Process

The Production Process

The Production Process

The Production Process

The Production Process

The Production Process

The Production Process

The Production Process

The Production Process

The Production Process

After drying and sanding, the seat and legs are meticulously assembled, with the three legs fixed securely to the seat using a proprietary system developed by Aalto himself. Because it arrives flat-packed, the Stool 60 very quickly became a success around the world. “They knew ‘we’re sitting in Finland, we’re sitting on the periphery, but we want to be across the world. So we better think of these things in a way that can be shipped’”, Goebl adds.

Flash forward to 2023, when we’ve had 90 years of Stool 60. It’s a huge milestone for Artek, which has offered the company a chance to reflect but also to build on the object’s existing legacy.

Kontrasti And Loimu

Kontrasti And Loimu

In the past year, the team has been hard at work on a series of new launches and exhibitions. At the Helsinki HQ, an exhibition tracks the history of the stool and its iterations throughout key moments in history. Special editions have so far arrived in the form of Kontrasti, which highlights the intricate engineering behind the stool, and Loimu, which is produced from an exceptionally rare birch variant that features a flame-like grain.

To further celebrate the milestone, Artek has cast Stool 60 in a starring role, for a movie that explores its role as a lifelong companion, and the many ways it is used – be it a perch, a table, or plinth. The movie, co-created with KEMMLER KEMMLER, exemplifies the way the stool manages to seamlessly fit into any time period or setting – from outdoors to indoors; gardens to kitchens.

“To me, there’s a difference between an icon and a classic – because an icon has this powerful image that you remember, but it’s not necessarily something you want to live with. Then I see a classic as being from another era, but still being mysteriously fresh and relevant today – I definitely see Stool 60 as being both. It was a very futuristic idea at its time, which made it iconic, but now, it looks absolutely ordinary and normal, making it a classic.”

As the year continues, Artek has more activations planned for the Stool 60, which will continue to propel its legacy into decades to come. It’s fitting, after all, given that the Aalto way was to keep looking forward.