I recently came across this interesting photo of the bent, crooked trees that grow in a forest in Poland. 

The photo reminded me of Alvar Aalto’s laminated bent-plywood High Stool.  Aalto, born in Finland in 1898 was a Finnish architect and designer whose work included architecture, interior design, furniture design, glassware design and painting.  Throughout his entire career Aalto designed approximately 300 buildings which were built mostly in Finland with a few in the United States, Germany, Italy and France.  The High Stool was designed in the early 1930’s resulting from the process of experimenting with wood while creating small-scale architectural details and forms which were later to be used in his architectural designs.  Aalto, in a speech given in London 1957 stated, “We should work for simple, good, undecorated things, but things which are in harmony with the human being and organically suited to the little man in the street”.  Alvar Aalto was definitely a person with great insight and a forward thinker. 

                       Image 1: viewshound.com    Image 2: Modmissy