Stool 60

Overview

Stool 60 is an Alvar Aalto design that Artek dates 1933. Artek calls it the most elemental of furniture pieces, equally suitable as a seat, a table, a storage unit or a display surface, and says it has barely changed in material or form since. The page's drawing carries a height of 44 cm and the note that the stool is stackable, up to ten high.

Construction

The three legs and the seat edge-band are solid birch. The seat core is solid birch or birch plywood, and the seat surface comes in birch veneer, high-pressure laminate, linoleum, padded fabric, padded leather or unpadded leather. With so few components the stool is flat-packed.

Specifications

• Height: 44 cm; stacking: max. 10
• Weight: 2.76 kg (environmental product declaration)
• Legs: solid birch, 21 standard versions listed on the page
• Made in Finland

From the Vyborg Library to MoMA

Wikipedia describes the stool as Aalto's 1933 design for the Vyborg Library, built with the bent leg he had been developing in early-1930s wood-bending experiments. It was first shown to the public in November 1933 at the Finnish design exhibition "Wood Only" at Fortnum & Mason in London, and a 1933 example entered the permanent collection of MoMA in 1958. The same article says Aalto tested a prototype by repeatedly throwing it against the ground.

A companion for life

For the stool's 90th anniversary Artek published a page headed "Stool 60: a companion for life". It says the stool has accompanied owners for almost a century, moving from home to home and often passing from one generation to the next, and lists uses from a seat for studying, working, dining or gathering to a bedside table, a plant stand or a place for books. Stacked, it can form a spiralling tower that saves space.