This Bench Morphs Into The Branch It Was Carved From

For most of us, there's a slight disconnect between the trees that surround us and the wood that makes up our furniture. A couple hundred years ago, you might chop down a tree, plane it, and sand it to make a bench, staying in touch with every step of its metamorphosis from a living thing to a functional object. These days, however, we buy our benches from Ikea. Wood, for us, is only intellectually related to a tree, in much the same way that a McNugget is only intellectually related to a chicken.

This is what gives French designer Benjamin Graindorge's Fallen Tree Bench a sort of relevant appeal. From one end to the other, the piece effortlessly segues from a sleek, modern bench to a raw branch of wood. Where one side is propped up with a leg made out of glass, the other stays upright by spreading its branches across the ground.

Created in 2011, the Living Tree Branch is a poetic concept, executed with breathtaking skill and clarity. It invites us to reconnect with the medium of wood, not just as a material but as a living thing. It's a one-off sculpture, so you can't buy it, but again, that's the point: a subtle comment about how mass production can disconnect us from the natural world that surrounds us.

[via Design You Trust]

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