Finnish brand Vaarnii has displayed its collection of wooden furniture alongside sculptural designs at the Tableau gallery during the annual 3 Days of Design festival in Copenhagen.
The brand, which was founded three years ago, creates pine furniture in local factories within Finland as an alternative items mass-produced abroad.
"We originally started the brand with the idea that the way that we consume stuff is broken," Vaarnii founder Antti Hirvonen told Dezeen.
"I can't say that we are anti-globalisation as such, because it's brought so many people up from poverty, but the fact is that [companies] manufacture things in cheap-labour countries, ship it halfway across the world, and then two years later we buy the same thing again because it's broken," he added.
Instead, Vaarnii wants to focus on creating pieces with a long lifespan.
"We wanted to do things that actually last 100 years," Hirvonen said.
At Tableau, Vaarnii's pine furniture was juxtaposed amongst sculptural design pieces by other designers and artists tied to the gallery, including Ukrainian brand Gunia, which showed its handcrafted porcelain plates and sculptures.
The exhibition came about because of the mutual admiration between Vaarnii and Tableau's founder, Julius Værnes Iversen.
"I was just so happy that Tableau decided to take us on board," Hirvonen said. "We've admired this space, the gallery and flower shop for many years."
"We knew that we wanted to do something for 3 Days of Design and as it turned out, Julius liked the brand and was very well aware of us. He very kindly offered to mix and match," he added.
Vaarnii's designs, which the brand describes as "brutal and sophisticated", aim to create a contemporary Finnish design vernacular with pieces made from local materials.
The furniture on show at Tableau was all made from pine. The wood is native to Finland but had fallen out of favour due to people's association with a 1980s aesthetic, when cellulose-based lacquers made it yellowish and shiny.
"We just use oil wax and actually the ageing process is very pleasant," Hirvonen said.
The result is a product that will change the way it looks over the years, which the designer sees as a selling point.
"A very senior Vitra executive once said 'I love pine, but we could never do anything in pine because our promise is that when you take the product out from the box and 10 years down the line, it's going to be exactly the same,'" Hirvonen said.
"Our promise is that two weeks later it's going to look completely different, but structurally it's going to last at least 100 years."
Among the pieces on show at the 3 Days of Design exhibition was a new three-legged stool by Swedish designer Fredrik Paulsen.
Vaarnii also showcased a classic lighting collection by furniture designer Hans Agne Jakobsson that has been reengineered in pine veneer and also comes in new, more sculptural versions.
The brand works with a rotating set of designers on its pieces, which are made locally in Finland. Setting up the production was one of the most difficult aspects of launching the brand, according to Hirvonen.
"We thought that it was going to be easy, but the problem was that pine had grown to be so unpopular because of the shinyness that since the early 1990s, pretty much all factories disappeared," he said.
"They actually had to call up some retired sawmill guys to ask them what you can do with the material – I would argue that the knowledge actually became very close to disappearing, which is crazy, as it is our most populous tree."
Other pieces on show at Tableau during 3 Days of Design included pottery by Dutch artist Willem van Hoff and the reef shelf series by designer Sarah Roseman.
Also showing during 3 Days of Design were design duo GamFratesi, which had created speakers for Bang & Olufsen, and Danish design studio Kristina Dam Studio, which exhibited its sculptural minimalist products.
The photography is by Michael Rygaard.
3 Days of Design took place in venues around Copenhagen from 7 to 9 June 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for information, plus a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.