The Future of Woodworking: Álvaro Aramburu

Álvaro Aramburu makes furnishings in a quiet village in central Sweden, but he grew up amid the bustle of Madrid. His grandmother was a painter, and his school notebooks were always full of drawings and paintings. Making them, he says, “would completely transport me elsewhere.”

He studied industrial design at the Technical University of Madrid, but the school’s engineering mindset felt constraining. “I started wondering if I wanted to do something on a smaller scale, something more focused on moving from material to concept rather than from concept to material.” Then he discovered the small, craft-based, woodoriented furniture program at Gothenburg University in Sweden. He had little experience working wood but decided to go anyway. Soon after arriving, he fell in love with wood and began to free himself from the old-school engineering mindset. “I found a more personal and introspective approach to design,” he says.

Working these days in a diverse design collective with other Gothenburg graduates, he finds himself integrating engineering and craft. Color and natural light are primary concerns as Aramburu develops his designs. “Like all woodworkers,” he says, “I can get mesmerized by a piece of wood.” But using color lets him add “a bit of play” to a piece. He defines shapes and details with chiaroscuro, the combination of light and shadow. “I work by a window, because I like focusing on the way natural light falls on a piece,” he says. “I’m always wondering how I can make something that is subtle and simple but still
conveys a lot.”

Traveling table and stools.

The side table in ash, with milk-painted stretcher and tusk tenons, was made to be flatpacked. Tapered sliding dovetails join its thin legs and top. The jaunty stools with staked legs are a mobile take on a traditional milking stool.

Playful patchwork.

The seat of Aramburu’s bench features inlaid and stained patches of pine and spruce, randomly placed in a plank of Swedish pine. The legs and stretcher, also solid pine, are coated with milk paint.

 

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