Jan Lutyk

Taking his cues from anthropology, Warsaw-based Jan Lutyk invents functional furniture while allowing natural materials to direct his process. “I like objects that are timeless,” the young talent confesses, “not designs that follow trends and fall out of fashion after five to ten years.” Lutyk recently graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Warsaw, design faculty, where he took part in Tomek Rygalik’s PG13 programme. Like many of his classmates – who attended the same specialized course – he adheres to an honest, no-nonsense approach and continuously explores the value of utility over aesthetic configuration. The Ribbon stool, his most recognized work, testifies to this commitment. Experimenting with thin strips of veneer, the designer intuitively explored how the material behaves, how it could translate into 3D form. The result is a jointed leg component – reinforced by additional sheets – combined into an overlapped three-prong stool. The organic form follows its own simple geometry. In touch with Polish history – his own heritage – he developed Folding Ladder based on an ancient archetype. Inspired by its original tree branch-composed structure, this present-day aluminum adaptation employs a simple easy-to-use mechanism. “I took the idea of a single form with foldable steps like branches as ladders that compact down into multiple elements are two complicated,” he explains. Mostly recently, he has begun collaborating with his wife and fellow designer Agata Matlak Lutyk – working in her great-grandfather’s communist-era wood workshop.