Artek at Dover Street Market

Sophie Loves chairs and if you do too, visit Artek at Dover Street Market



Chair 69, Artek 2nd Cycle



Chair 69, Artek 2nd Cycle




Chair 60, Artek 2nd Cycle


High Chair K65, Artek 2nd Cycle



Stool 60, Artek 2nd Cycle




Stool 60, Artek 2nd Cycle


Artek 2nd Cycle installation at Dover Street Market, London

Not ones to shy away from an unusual collaboration, our friends at Dover Street Market have turned this time to the world of furniture to give their store a makeover. Tom Dixon, Creative Director of historic Finnish furniture company Artek, has curated an intriguing project - retrospective, selling exhibition and installation in equal parts.

'Artek Invasion: 2nd Cycle' sees a hefty number of the eight million chairs and stools that have been sold since Artek began producing them in 1935 now reunited. In a refreshingly cultural take on sustainability, Artek and Dixon have tagged each vintage stool and chair with an RFID label which sends a weblink to your mobile with the history of that individual chair. The idea is that knowing the history and circumstances through which a chair has reached your possession adds historical and personal value, thereby persuading you to keep it for longer.

The chairs and stools have been piled high in various spots throughout Dover Street Market, including two particularly spectacular tumbling piles on the ground floor. Elsewhere lines snake through, as if waiting for a well-groomed game of musical chairs. Our favourite area is the Rose Bakery on the fourth floor, where an eclectic mix of old stools have replaced the normal seating. A telltale sign of their success was at the installation's launch party: so often at these events people mill around politely ignoring the seating, but this time every stool was taken.

Click here to read more about the project from Tom Dixon.

Via Wallpaper