Inside Artek
en
How a 90-Year Legacy Continues to Shape the Future of Modern Design.
Posted - 16 October 2025
As Artek turns 90, we travelled to Finland to explore the legacy of a brand that shaped modern design, and continues to define how we live with it today.
Few design companies have left as deep an imprint on everyday life as Artek. Founded in 1935 by Alvar and Aino Aalto, alongside Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl, the Finnish furniture brand has spent the past nine decades shaping how we think about modern living. Not only through objects, but through the ideas, materials, and values that underpin them.
To mark this milestone year, we travelled to Finland with Vitra & Artek, to see the world of Artek and Aalto’s up close. Across three days, from the flagship store in Helsinki and the pioneering 2nd Cycle archive to the beating heart of production in Turku, we traced the brand’s story from its origins to its present, and glimpsed how its founding principles still guide its future.
Our journey began in Helsinki, where design isn’t confined to galleries or museums, it’s everywhere. Streets, interiors, public spaces and libraries carry the unmistakable influence of Alvar Aalto, Finland’s most celebrated architect and a pioneer of humanist modernism. It’s the perfect setting for understanding Artek’s origins.
The visit started at Artek’s flagship store, located in a building designed by Eliel Saarinen and sandwiched by two Aalto designed buildings. Spread across two levels, it offers the entire Artek collection as well as products by like-minded brands, many of which are exclusive to Finland.
The store features an expanded book and magazine selection. It also carries a large range of home textiles, including fabrics, curtains, and both historic and contemporary carpets. Particular attention is given to design from Finland and its neighbouring countries. This approach traces back to the company’s founding vision: Artek is a fusion of art and tekniikka (technology), created to unite craft and industry, function and poetry.
The showroom reflects that duality. Alongside iconic Aalto pieces, the space includes contemporary collaborations, like special editions produced with Marimekko. Some of Marimekko’s most iconic prints by designer Maija Isola combine with the purity of Alvar Aalto’s Stool 60, Table 90D and Bench 153B. Each pattern is applied using marquetry on birch veneer, where contrasting wood grains translate Isola’s vibrant patterns into a subtle, shimmering surface.
Downstairs, a dedicated section for 2nd Cycle, Artek’s second-hand and archival arm, quietly demonstrates another cornerstone of the brand’s approach: that good design should not only last but grow more meaningful with time.
A short walk away, the full 2nd Cycle showroom brings this philosophy into sharper focus. Started in 2006, Artek 2nd Cycle is the platform for pre-loved Finnish design: it buys and sells rediscovered furniture, lighting and other everyday objects, giving them a second cycle in their lives. Housed in a vast 1000 square metre, underground space filled floor-to-ceiling with vintage Artek furniture, it’s less a shop and more a living archive, a place where each stool, chair and bench tells a story of decades of use and countless lives lived.
Many of the pieces bear the marks of their histories: upholstery updated over the years, patinas deepened by time, subtle modifications added by previous owners. Rather than diminishing their value, these traces make them richer, evidence of a design language so enduring it can adapt and evolve without losing its essence. The most sustainable product is one that doesn’t need replacing.
The next day took us west to Turku and into the heart of Artek’s production: the A-Factory. Here, all bentwood Artek furniture is made, in keeping with the original vision of Alvar Aalto to combine modern production methods with skilful handcraftsmanship and carefully selected materials.
The production floor is a fascinating study in contrast. On one side, robotic arms perform precise sanding and finishing operations with unerring consistency. On the other, craftspeople shape and assemble components by hand, their skills honed over decades, their human judgement irreplaceable.
We watched as the signature L-shaped legs, a hallmark of Aalto’s furniture, were formed through an intricate process. In the early 1930s, Alvar Aalto pioneered and patented an innovative technique for bending solid wood into a right angle. The method involved making a series of parallel cuts into the end of a birch plank, extending slightly beyond the point where the wood would be curved. Thin layers of birch veneer were then inserted into these grooves and bonded in place. This approach made bending easier, as the lamellae were far more pliable than a single, thick piece of timber, while also enhancing the strength and dimensional stability of the final piece.
Originally conceived for the iconic Stool 60, the L-leg quickly became a defining structural element across Artek’s range. Aalto affectionately described it as “the little sister of the architectural column.” Today, L-legs of different sizes and angles form the foundation of many pieces in the Artek collection, including Chair 69, Bench 153, and the Aalto Table.
Later that day, we visited a 1930s sanatorium designed by Alvar and Aino Aalto, built at a time when tuberculosis treatments were limited and environmental conditions played a key role in patient care. The building was carefully planned to support recovery, with features such as exclusively south-facing balconies to maximise sunlight exposure, large windows for natural ventilation, and outdoor terraces designed to encourage time spent in fresh air.
We observed the same approach in several other projects from the Aaltos’ career. At the Savoy Restaurant, the building designed and furnished by Aino and Alvar Aalto remains largely unchanged since it opened more than 50 years ago. Visits to Aalto House and Studio Aalto, the couple’s home and architectural practice, provided further insight into how they worked.
In 1934, Aino and Alvar Aalto acquired a site in almost completely untouched surroundings at Riihitie in Helsinki’s Munkkiniemi. They started designing their own house which was completed in August 1936. This was used to live and work, with 20 architects in its peak. In 1955, Alvar Aalto designed the building at Tiilimäki 20 in Munkkiniemi to serve as his architectural studio.
With the practice expanding and taking on major new projects, additional workspace had become essential. The new studio, situated just a short walk from Aalto’s own home, where the office had originally operated, provided that much-needed space. Today, Studio Aalto is regarded as one of his finest works from the 1950s.
Throughout our trip, we encountered reissued pieces from Artek’s ongoing Gems from the Archive project, which brings historic designs back into production for a contemporary audience.
Among the most notable returns are the Aalto Tables and Benches, originally designed in 1936. Celebrated for their versatility, they work just as well in domestic interiors as they do in workplaces, schools or public spaces, a reflection of Aalto’s belief in adaptable, democratic design.
This year’s collection expands the range with new sizes and configurations and sees the return of the Aalto foldable table, a piece that embodies functional flexibility and thoughtful engineering. These revivals are not nostalgic gestures; they’re reminders that good ideas don’t age, they adapt.
While Artek’s 90th anniversary is an opportunity to look back, it’s also a chance to look forward. Alongside the reintroductions and celebrations, the company is expanding its presence internationally, with a renewed focus on the UK market and a dedicated Artek Showroom space in London. It’s a move that reflects Artek’s dual identity: deeply rooted in Finnish culture yet fundamentally global in outlook.
This next chapter builds on the same principles that have guided the brand for 90 years, an unwavering commitment to quality, longevity, human-centred design and cultural relevance.
Spending time inside Artek’s world reveals a company that is far more than a furniture manufacturer. Its products are objects, yes but they’re also vessels for ideas about how we live, how we build, and how design can quietly improve the world around us.
From the precision of the A-Factory floor to the rich shelves of 2nd Cycle, from the revival of archive pieces to the enduring presence of Aalto’s architecture in everyday Finnish life, Artek demonstrates that true design longevity is not about resisting change, but about evolving without losing your core.
Ninety years on, Artek remains a masterclass in that balance, a reminder that good design doesn’t just follow culture, it shapes it. And in a world where speed and novelty dominate, Artek shows us the power of ideas built to last.
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