Finnish furniture company Artek was founded in 1935 by designers Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino Aalto, arts promoter Maire Gullichsen and art historian Nils-Gustav Hahl, with an emphasis on quality in terms of technique, production methods and materials.
Alvar Aalto originally created his tea trolley, which has now become a design classic, for the World Exhibition of Paris in 1937. The tea trolley gets its typical look thanks to the bent birch frame, the big plywood wheels, the hand-made rattan basket and the table's ceramic surface. Aalto designed the tea trolley for home use and in fact it can be found also in the living room of Villa Mairea, the villa designed by Alvar Aalto.
