CategoriesFurniture and Lighting
Stool
A seat without a back or arms, among the oldest forms of furniture and a favourite subject for designers working in wood, metal and plastic.
No works indexed yet · 10 related artists
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About
Stools came before chairs in most cultures. Egyptian craftsmen made folding stools with crossed legs, and in Rome the folding sella curulis marked the authority of senior magistrates. Among the Asante of Ghana, carved wooden stools hold spiritual meaning, and the Golden Stool embodies the unity of the nation. Farmers' milking stools and bar stools show the form's everyday range.
Modern designers found in the stool a pure exercise. Alvar Aalto's Stool 60 (1933) attaches bent birch legs straight to a round seat and stacks in a spiral, Sori Yanagi's Elephant Stool (1954) was moulded in fibreglass, and Poul Hundevad based a folding stool on a Bronze Age find from Denmark. Look at how the legs meet the seat, since that joint takes all the strain.
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