Dancing Wood: 2 Lovely Sculptural Bent Wood Seats

The last thing you might think to do with these bent wood sculptures is sit on them, but that’s exactly what designer Bar Lavi built them for. The bent wood stool series consists of two softly flowing wood stools constructed with only a single bolt holding each together.


The darker stool was made from a single piece of beech wood. Lavi split the wood into thin strips and curled the pieces into seemingly random patterns until they rejoined the still-solid first part of the wood piece. A stabilizing cross piece was added to keep the stool from tipping.

Two pieces of poplar wood comprise the lighter-colored stool. The strips of this stool are arranged in a far more orderly fashion, taking on a cradle-like appearance. It may seem improbable, but no glue or other fasteners were used save for the single bolt where the two sides converge.

Lavi used various methods to hold the wood in place until it naturally hardened into its new sculptural shapes. Clamps and ropes applied to the flexible wood strips trained them into the designer’s vision of the graceful, if unconventional, stools.