A fictional meeting between Finnish architect Alvar Aalto and American ceramicist Edith Heath formed the basis of a collaboration that combines their designs, displayed in an installation by LA studio The Archers.
Artek, the Turku-based furniture company co-founded by Aalto, and Heath's eponymous Californian ceramics brand have combined forces on a modernist mash-up.

Both figures are no longer with us, so the current leaders of the two brands had to imagine the outcome of a creative union between them.
The result is a series of limited-edition products, which includes versions of Artek's bent wood Stool 60 and Tea Trolley 900, reinterpreted with colourful glazes created by the Heath Clay Studio based on archive designs.

The tea trolley, first issued in 1937, is topped with custom tiles ? six options were each produced as a run of six. The stools are also available with a bespoke silkscreen surface pattern, or as a set of three with their legs incrementally shortened so they stack perfectly on top of one another.

To launch the Artek x Heath collection in New York, the companies turned to The Archers to create an installation at the Meatpacking District showroom of Artek's parent company Vitra.

The Archers envisioned a scenario in which Alvar Aalto and Edith Heath met during MoMA's Good Design exhibition in 1950, which featured work by both designers.

After deciding to collaborate, the pair formally discuss the project years later in a hotel conference room. This setting...