Waste Wood, Fuselage Cupboards... and Bestlite

ARTEK SHOWROOM, Helsinki, Finland

Alvar Aalto, the legendary Finnish designer and architect, has created some unsurpassed pieces of furniture, now manufactured by Artek. In the frameworks of Helsinki Design Week 2009, we were lucky to visit the Artek showroom and find there an exhibition of Piet Hein Eek, a Dutch designer, whose work of wood and alluminium challenges the bravest imaginarium. Fantisizing about an aluminium kicker in St. Petersburg (kickers are very popular in this city, we have one at our office. Corporate kicking is stress-releasing, you know :)...

Actually, we never miss an opportunity to drop in there, it's one of our savoured places in this awesome city. The showpieces are objects to die for -- including Bestlite, the favourite Winston Churchill's lamp, he was no amateur, eh? (below, right)

What else? The lighting is quirky and yet it's another "object" to contemplate: first of all it's old, seems that it's purely functional and there's a feeling that different types and kinds of fixtures have been picked up and placed all over the place without any concept or design in mind... Cool hodgepodge!