L leg Collection

Artek L-leg Collection by Alvar Aalto

Artek E60 stool

The iconic L-leg collection by Alvar Aalto includes more than 50 Artek furniture designs; works which have become popular design classics, and which represent a body of work which goes far beyond the famous Stool 60. In the spirit of a connection between technology and art, which Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius spoke out so prominently for the “new unity” and which would later give Artek its name (“art”, “technology”), Alvar Aalto began experimenting with bending wood in the 1920s; in cooperation with the master carpenter and furniture manufacturer Otto Korhonen, an L-shaped curved solid wooden leg, the so-called L-leg, was finally produced, which Aalto aptly described as “the little sister of the architectural column”. Thanks to this innovative and creatively elegant solution, which Aalto had patented in 1933, the L-leg could be connected directly to horizontal surfaces in different dimensions as a vertical element. Based on a series of standardized elements, it was possible to create a versatile furniture collection that emphasized the warm, organic character of the wood with high stability. The approach to using standardized elements for extensive furniture series or building types is characteristic of Alvar Aalto's work and of the functionalist design of modernism in general. To this day, the furniture in the L-leg collection has lost none of its beauty, authenticity and versatility and is made from Finnish birch wood in the company's own factory in Turku, just like in Alvar Aalto's time. The woods used by Artek are up to eighty years old and owe their characteristic light colour to the mineral content of the Finnish soil and the long drying time outdoors.