Otto Korhonen founded the furniture manufacturing company Hounekalutehdas Korhonen Oy together with three other carpenters in Turku 1910. At the end on the 1920’s, Korhonen partnered with Alvar Aalto and their first design was a stackable chair in 1927.
Aalto began working on two major projects during the late 1920’s; the Southwestern Agricultural Cooperative Building in Turku and the Paimio Sanatorium (1929-33). The later became Aalto and Korhonens major collaboration, where they designed a range of armchairs and tables for the sanatorium’s personnel and patients. The furniture was produced by Korhonen’s factory which together with Aalto developed a new method for laminating wood during the 1930’s.
The new method resulted in the L-leg, which was patented by Aalto in 1933 and was later used in over different 50 designs. The L-Leg was later followed by the Y-leg in 1947 and the X-leg in 1954. During the following years Hounekalutehdas Korhonen Oy mainly produced Aalto and Artek’s classical designs. In 2014 the factory was bought by Artek who continued the production.
Korhonen and Aalto’s designs, including the Modell 23 and the Paimio armchair, are a part of museum collections such as the Museum of Furniture Studies in Stockholm, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein.
