Urushi Stool

In Aldo Bakker’s sculptural console tables, seating and decorative objects, the Dutch designer prioritizes form over function and increasingly blurs the lines between art and furniture.

Bakker began to craft jewelry and models for his parents in 1987. His father is Gijs Bakker, the designer and cofounder of Droog, and his mother is Emmy van Leersum, the avant-garde jewelry maker who collaborated with her husband on monumental collars, bracelets and headpieces that set the fashion world atwitter in the 1960s and ’70s. With no formal training — he dropped out of design school after mere months — Aldo evolved quickly as a designer, exploring sculpture and creating furniture, utensils and other home goods. 

Bakker secured commissions for legendary Danish silverware firm Georg Jensen and took to studying artists of all mediums. He found inspiration in the work of composer Luigi Nono, painter Giorgio Morani and architect-designer Carlo Scarpa. He has spent months or even years producing drawings and models in his studio, refining ideas for a particular shape before deciding what sort of object it should be. Then, he usually partners with a craftsperson capable of making it in a specified material, like silver, glass, ceramic, wood or lacquer.

In addition to the work he’s done for Georg Jensen, Bakker has created pieces for Austrian jewelry company Swarovski, Danish design brand Karakter, French silversmiths Puiforcat and more. He has commanded attention at the Looiersgracht 60 and has had solo exhibitions at Atelier Courbet in New York, the Libby Sellers Gallery in London and the Villa Noailles in France and the Vivid Gallery in Rotterdam, among others. 

Bakker’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Centre Pompidou, the Rijksmuseum and other institutions.

On 1stDibs, find Aldo Bakker tables, case pieces and storage cabinets.

Stools are versatile and a necessary addition to any living room, kitchen area or elsewhere in your home. A sofa or reliable lounge chair might nab all the credit, comfort-wise, but don’t discount the roles that good antique, new and vintage stools can play.

“Stools are jewels and statements in a space, and they can also be investment pieces,” says New York City designer Amy Lau, who adds that these seats provide an excellent choice for setting an interior’s general tone. 

Stools, which are among the oldest forms of wooden furnishings, may also serve as decorative pieces, even if we’re talking about a stool that is far less sculptural than the gracefully curving molded plywood shells that make up Sōri Yanagi’s provocative Butterfly stool. 

Fawn Galli, a New York interior designer, uses her stools in the same way you would use a throw pillow. “I normally buy several styles and move them around the home where needed,” she says.

Stools are smaller pieces of seating as compared to armchairs or dining chairs and can add depth as well as functionality to a space that you’ve set aside for entertaining. For a splash of color, consider the Stool 60, a pioneering work of bentwood by Finnish architect and furniture maker Alvar Aalto. It’s manufactured by Artek and comes in a variety of colored seats and finishes.

Barstools that date back to the 1970s are now more ubiquitous in kitchens. Vintage barstools have seen renewed interest, be they a meld of chrome and leather or transparent plastic, such as the Lucite and stainless-steel counter stool variety from Indiana-born furniture designer Charles Hollis Jones, who is renowned for his acrylic works. A cluster of barstools — perhaps a set of four brushed-aluminum counter stools by Emeco or Tubby Tube stools by Faye Toogood — can encourage merriment in the kitchen. If you’ve got the room for family and friends to congregate and enjoy cocktails where the cooking is done, consider matching your stools with a tall table.

Whether you need counter stools, drafting stools or another kind, explore an extensive range of antique, new and vintage stools on 1stDibs.