The Story of a Biennale Stool

The Story of a Biennale Stool

The life of a new piece of furniture often seems to begin at the moment we bring it home. However, depending on how you look at it, the story may have begun decades ago.

Kari Virtanen originally designed the Biennale stool for the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2014. While produced using age-old, traditional carpentry skills and techniques, the stool represents a streamlined, modern aesthetic. Biennale requires several demanding and time-consuming steps before it becomes a finished product. First, we first have to wait — specifically, in order to reach the required thickness for the stool, an oak tree must grow for decades to become the appropriate size. And, given that Biennale stools are made from parts of oak logs that would otherwise be unused, for example, due to unwanted shade, branches or cracks, the wait can be even longer.

First, we first have to wait — specifically, in order to reach the required thickness for the stool, an oak tree must grow for decades to become the appropriate size. And, given that Biennale stools are made from parts of oak logs that would otherwise be unused, for example, due to unwanted shade, branches or cracks, the wait can be even longer.

The next, time-consuming step involves drying the wood properly for the cabinetmaker. This seemingly passive phase takes months, but it is absolutely vital to ensure that the massive piece of wood does not crack excessively or even shatter all-together.

Then comes the active phase, with multiple, demanding steps. For example, one stool weighs up to 40 kilograms and requires considerable physical strength on the part of the cabinetmaker. When the desired rectangular shape has been achieved with a surface planer, the stool is sawn to size and sanded. The work continues with cross-sanding, manually smoothing the edges of corners and cracks, and then sanding some more. Finally, the surface of the furniture is treated twice with a wood oil mixture. Between treatments, the stool is sanded one more time, in order to reach the smoothest possible texture.

And then, into the customer’s hands, where the story does not begin, but continues.