The Shapes of Wood. Interview with Henrik Tjærby

Born in Denmark but resident in northern Spain for around 15 years, Henrik Tjærby describes himself as an “industrial designer” and a “maker”, convinced that these two seemingly opposite approaches are complementary. In his workshop, built using recycled granite—taken from fallen down houses in the Galician countryside—he alternates the artisanal manipulation of wood—a material he loves and has had the chance to explore while working with firms like Artek and Vaarnii famous for their unique know-how—with the use of state-of-the-art digital machinery. It was only natural, therefore, that when Marco Sammicheli commissioned him to create a special piece for Text, he proposed a functional object: a 7-meter long pine wood table, which is also a compendium of the different manual and low- and hi-tech woodworking techniques, as well as a tribute to his friends from the design industry who shaped him as the designer he is today.

The exhibition hinges on the relationship between text and texture: two words that have the same etymology (deriving from the Latin texere, “to weave, to plait”). In fact, writing and weaving are based on the same principle: constructing something more complex from a series of elementary units—words, stitches or knots—connected according to a number of syntactic rules. In both activities creativity can be expressed freely, but within a rigorous structure. Henrik Tjærby interpreted the brief in a personal way, asking 12 colleagues and friends (nine designers, one design studio, the Finnish firm Vaarnii with which Tjærby is working on the promotion of fast-growing trees like pine, and the museum itself) to suggest a texture to be created on each of the 12 panels that compose the top of the Triennale Table, using different processes, from hand carving to wire brushing, embossing, CNC machining and more.

They are designers I met at different times in my life, at the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen or in the studios where I worked, and who are important to me for various reasons. Some of them are very famous, others less so, but each has inspired me and passed something on to me: ideas, a special technique, a specific design process, how to work with new materials, new ways to present to client, and so on. To a certain extent, we are the people we meet along our path, and that’s why I decided to tell my story through them.

The only limitations were that their top should be able to hold a glass, carry its own weight and keep the natural color of the wood. Some of these textures and solutions together would be impossible in an industrial production context, so we had fun experimenting by mixing hi- and low-tech. Some of them sent me very detailed drawings and instructions; others, simply an image. Christian Kornum, who is a close friend and one of the most talented makers I know, sent me a picture of sand ripples on the ocean floor and challenged me to reproduce the effect. I knew I had succeeded when my seven-year-old son saw the finished panel and exclaimed: “Look, Dad, the seabed!” Philippe Malouin submitted a video in which he took a very famous stool of his, closed it in a box full of old screws and markers and kicked it down the stairs. I interpreted the resulting finish my children in an activity that was midway between play and performance: we threw some old nuts and bolts on the table panel and started hitting them with a hammer, exploiting the softness of the pine wood. The result is a pattern that could never be replicated: a real one-off.