Mixed Imagery from the Artek Catalogue

Today I’m going to revisit the one and only Artek, a company who we’ve talked about many times before here on the blog. Alvar Aalto is a massive inspiration and since Artek was co-founded by the man himself and three other inspired creatives, his wife Aino, Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl, it makes sense that they sell top class furniture.

The reason why I came across today’s set of imagery was because I found out about a project titled “2nd cycle” which is part of Artek’s environmental strategy. They’ve sold over 8 million Aalto stools since 1935 and a few years ago Artek started collecting these chairs and others that they’ve produced, wanting to give these classics a new lease of life so they’ve decided to sell them on a separate website. I highly recommend visiting it here if you get a chance, it’s basically recycling vintage furniture and they have a few shops in Finland as well that sell these second hand pieces.

This specific imagery above and below comes from the Artek catalogue which I found lurking about on their main website, it’s a great little find which showcases a variety of images such as the manufacturing back in the day and also some of the new chairs/forms. I’m a massive fan of Artek’s style and charisma, their branding is pretty impeccable and it breathes creativity, freedom and most importantly care over the products that they sell. You get a real feeling that they’re bothered about what they produce, every product needs to keep its integrity as time goes on so they think about the longevity of the different projects and how they’ll be able to produce these chairs not jut now but in the future as well. It’s quite an interesting concept when you come to think of it and I’m pretty positive that this “2nd cycle” programme will only help their cause now, it looks like a great project with sustainability being something I’ve been thinking about for many years.

And as Alvar Aalto said himself, “Nothing old is ever reborn but neither does it totally disappear. And that which has once been born, will always reappear in a new form”. Too true my friend, too true.

I hope you enjoy this imagery below, like I said above please head towards both links below, on one you’ll find the main artek page with the rest of this catalogue (a PDF) and the other will be a small shop selling second hand artek furniture. For 200 Euro I’m tempted to purchase a stool myself.

www.artek.fi
www.2ndcycle.artek.fi

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