A Table Stays in the Family

Lars Bundgaard has a rule: he will not make anything that cannot be repaired. Not should not be repaired. Cannot. Every joint is mechanical, not chemical. Every surface is finished with oil, not lacquer. If a piece breaks — in twenty years, or a hundred — someone can fix it.

"A piece of furniture that cannot be repaired is just slow rubbish. It takes thirty years to get to the landfill instead of three, but it gets there."

He works from a workshop in Aarhus that he built himself over three summers. The building is warm, heavily insulated, smells of walnut shavings and linseed oil. He has two workbenches, a small collection of hand planes, and a bandsaw that is older than he is.

Against designed obsolescence

Lars made his first table at eighteen for his parents' kitchen. They still eat at it. It has been refinished twice. One leg was replaced — he did it himself, in an afternoon — after a move damaged it. "The table is forty-one years old," he says. "If I had bought a table from a flat-pack shop, we would be on our fifth or sixth one by now. Think about what that means for the planet."

His pieces are expensive — considerably more than the mass-market alternatives. He does not apologise for this. He makes the cost-per-year argument with quiet patience: a table that lasts a hundred years and costs three thousand euros costs thirty euros per year. A table that costs three hundred euros and lasts ten years costs the same — and fills a landfill.

"The cheap option is almost never cheap. You are borrowing quality from the future and paying with the planet."

The Arcana Walnut Serving Tray is made in collaboration with Lars Bundgaard's workshop. Each piece is signed and dated by its maker.