Vintage Artek

Artek was founded in Helsinki in 1935 by Alvar Aalto, Aino Aalto, Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl. The founders wanted both to distribute the Aaltos’ furniture and to advance a modern culture of living through exhibitions and education. Even the company name joins the words art and technology, reflecting the wider modernist ambition to bring creative thought and industrial production together.

Alvar and Aino Aalto are central to Artek’s early identity. Their furniture grew from architectural thinking: human scale, natural materials and forms suited to everyday life. Bent birch became particularly important. Aalto’s standardised L-leg system allowed legs, seats and table tops to be combined across a broad family of furniture, while models such as Chair 66, Chair 69 and the Aalto stools remained adaptable across private and public interiors.

Vintage Artek is especially rewarding because age makes differences in production, finish and use visible. Birch can deepen in tone, linoleum and laminate surfaces record their surroundings, and original upholstery may reveal a particular period. Labels, construction, materials, dimensions and known production details are therefore considered together when Pino assesses a piece. We only offer pieces that we have established to be authentic; original paperwork is included when it survives, but it is not a requirement for an authentic vintage example.

This page brings together active Artek pieces at Pino, selected Archive references and routes into the designers and models behind them. Each product page remains the source for the condition, dimensions, restoration and quantity of the individual piece.