This table is designed by the architect and designer Alvar Aalto (1898-1976), comprising of a wooden tabletop in stained solid birch and four legs made of bent, laminated wood mounted directly to the underside of the tabletop without the need for complicated connecting elements.

The legs of the table represent what Aalto himself viewed as the most important discovery in his furniture design, the L-shaped leg. The innovation was the idea of the “bent knee” which meant that a piece of solid birch wood was sawn open at the end in the direction of the fibers just below the level of the planned bend and thin pieces of wood veneer strips were then inserted and glued into the grooves. Afterwards the wood was bent to the desired angle, in this case 90 degrees. The production method meant a simplified bending process and gave the component an increased stability, an invention that Aalto patented it in 1933. [1]

With this technique Aalto could create furniture that was stable, hardwearing, and suitable for standardization but keep the warm and organic qualities of wood which he preferred to the cold tubular steel. The principle was added to chairs, stools and tables of various heights, lengths, and widths. The dimensions indicates that it could be used as a small dining table or as a desk and is an example that this method of standardization could not only easily be mass produced but from the same basic principle be adapted to create furniture for many purposes and dimensions. The system of standard components made it possible to create more than 50 versions based on the same basic idea.

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