Description
Finland’s mid-century design reputation is easy to tell entirely through metalwork. Aarikka told a different, equally Finnish story, founded in 1962 by Kaija Aarikka, working almost entirely in turned wood rather than precious metal.
This pendant is a good example of why that mattered. Wood was cheap, domestic, and unmistakably Finnish, birch and other native timbers were the actual material of everyday Finnish life in a way imported silver never quite was.
Why this matters for how the whole movement gets remembered. Aarikka is a useful corrective: the same design instincts worked just as well applied to a piece of turned birch as to a bar of silver. The philosophy was the point, not the metal.
What to look for. The turning should be smooth and even, with the wood’s natural grain left visible rather than painted over, and it’s intact here.
This piece was part of a small, genuinely personal collection of mid-century and antique jewellery, gathered over years rather than acquired for resale. It has since sold.
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