Pirkka table by Ilmari Tapiovaara for Laukaan Puu, 1950

Largely inspired by Alvar Aalto and Le Corbusier, with whom he collaborated, the Finnish designer Imari Tapiovaara (1914 – 1999) developed furniture, essentially in wood, that is a perfect synthesis of the Finnish modernist style. His design is sober, minimalist and soft, and he shares the Scandinavian attention to materials and ergonomics. This led him to design furniture for the Finnish army during the Second World War.
After graduating in 1937 from the Helsinki School of Applied Arts, he went on to work with Finland’s largest furniture manufacturer Asko as an art director from the 1930s to 1940s, before his own work received attention with the Domus chair he designed between 1946 and 1947 as part of the Domus Academica design, on which he worked with his wife.

The Pirkka table, created in the 1950s by the designer Ilmari Tapiovaara, was inspired by traditional Finnish vernacular furniture, but with a modern interpretation.