Stolab© Lilla Åland chair and Carl divisible table 8 (kopia).jpg

We give you a 20-year guarantee, but believe in a lifelong relationship

For us at Stolab, sustainability means producing furniture that is of high quality and has such a timeless shape that it will last for generations. And no piece of furniture can represent this better than Lilla Åland. For those who care about sustainability in both function and aesthetics, we are now offering a 20-year guarantee on our Lilla Åland stick chairs in solid oak and birch. A good start for what we hope will be a lifelong relationship.

This is where it started

One summer's day in 1939, furniture professor Carl Malmsten visited the church of Finström in Åland in connection with a woodwork course. He is said to have expressed himself as follows: "In the sacristy I came across some high-backed cane chairs, which completely captivated me. The curvaceous curvature of the seat and the supple, end-light-friendly hollowing, as well as the legs and the 8 back sticks‘ upwardly rising struts, testified to a masterful sense of construction and rhythmic expression."

Carl had an ability to express himself poetically and eager in his inspiration, he, together with his student Sven Erik Fryklund, made a measurement and then a drawing of the chair, which he named Lilla Åland (there were also sketches of a Stora Åland, but it had to stop at a drawing).

Stolab a carefully selected key workshop

The drawing of the chair was simplified and reduced slightly in order to be adapted to machine production. For Malmsten, it was important that good design and quality should be accessible to more than the most affluent. With this in mind, he selected a number of furniture manufacturers to work with to enable larger volumes. He called the carefully selected producers Key Workshops and one of these became Stolab, which also had the honour of taking the drawings for Lilla Åland into production. For Malmsten, Little Åland was as dear as a child ‘And just think, now I will have children by the thousands. They will come from the world-famous pinned chair factory in Smålandsstenar.’

A timeless, beloved classic

In 1942, the first Lilla Åland left the Stolab factory. Today, over 80 years later, it's one of our best-loved furniture classics and looks much the same as it always has. Just like then, all 17 parts are made from solid wood in our factory here in Smålandsstenar. Wood that has been carefully selected, cut, sawn, turned, polished, assembled and surface treated. Finally signed with a stamp as proof of its origin and our pride. Despite its somewhat modest appearance, Lilla Åland has had a given place around the dining table for generations. A symbol of what feels safe and lasting. Soft in its forms, strong in its constitution. Malmsten always started with people and was inspired by the forms he found in nature. He is said to have frequently repeated ‘In nature there are no sharp edges’.

Possibility to repair and buy spare parts

We have a concept that we call Reduce, Reuse, Restore in order to give all our furniture as long a life as possible. If you have chosen Lilla Åland chairs, you can also order spare parts from us, no matter how old your chair is. We have sent loose pegs to chairs that were 70 years old and where, out of respect for both the previous owner and the furniture itself, they wanted to renew rather than discard. This motivates us to constantly develop our sustainability thinking further in both existing products and in the design of new ones.