![Silence and Sensibility in Mobel’s Kolo Chair Silence and Sensibility in Mobel’s Kolo Chair](https://media.designerpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Kolo-side.jpeg)
Silence and Sensibility in Mobel’s Kolo Chair
Interior designer Jouko Järvisalo has a way with words. I know not one Finnish stereotype, so I can’t ascribe his unique use of language to the culture. To wit: “A piece of furniture is created when thinking meets with the material used, as a result of the pondering that takes
place in the middle ground between handiwork and the machine.” We can surmise that Järvisalo places a lot of emphasis on ruminating. As the Chief Designer and Artistic Director of Mobel, Järvisalo oversees their collection of contract furniture.
![Kolo chair front](https://media.designerpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Kolo-Front-1024x694.jpeg)
Kolo. Designed by Jouko Järvisalo of Mobel.
Mobel too holds an exacting philosophy—“the collection embodies the views of the designer without compromises.” I admire a man who values reflection, and I revere a company with a steadfast loyalty to their designers’ vision. Kolo, one of Mobel’s easy chairs, portrays the company’s artistic bent and brainy design. A collection of angles and a feast of lineation, Kolo means cave or cavity, according to one Finnish-English dictionary. Hole or slot is the denotative meaning given by another such tome (the connotations are yours to analyze).
![silence-and-sensibility-incarnated-in-mobel-s-kolo-chair-large Kolo chair side](http://3rings.designerpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/silence-and-sensibility-incarnated-in-mobel-s-kolo-chair-large.jpg)
The idea behind Kolo is simple: take one piece of wood and bend it to form a workable chair. One part becomes the seat, another the back—and what’s left over the armrests. Playing with one-piece construction is fun; it’s also clever. The use of the material leaves no waste. Like origami, the original form is static and flat while the resulting art is dynamic and three-dimensional. Kolo’s real attraction, however, is its central hollow—a void that contains everything and nothing, the intellectual space carved out by Järvisalo and Mobel.
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