Antrei Hartikainen | ScandinavianDesign.com

Antrei Hartikainen is a Finnish master cabinetmaker and designer who lives and works in the village of Fiskars in southern Finland. His furniture, sculptures and installations, mostly in wood, deliberately blur the line between functional objects and fine art. In 2023 he was named Rising Star of the Year at the Scandinavian Design Awards.

Background

Hartikainen was born in 1991. He started in joinery workshops as a teenager and trained in woodwork and crafts at North Karelia and Salpaus, qualifying as a master cabinetmaker in 2013. The same year he won silver in cabinetmaking at the WorldSkills championship, after Finnish national titles in 2010 and 2011. From 2010 he worked at Nikari in Fiskars, from 2014 to 2020 as master cabinetmaker. In 2020 he co-founded Studio Kohta, and he has worked closely with Poiat, the studio of Antti Rouhunkoski and Timo Mikkonen.

Design approach

Hartikainen explores the range of possibilities in wood. He works with contrasts between worked and smooth surfaces, light and shadow, and light and solid volumes. Some pieces lean towards practicality, others towards material or artistic expression. The Melt collection, shown at SaloneSatellite in 2023, translates the movement of water into vases, cabinets and tables in glass and wood. The Variant collection combines clay, oak and coated polystyrene.

Key designs

The Bastone Collection (2018) of cabinets and sideboards is clad in rows of wooden dowels that create patterns of light and shadow. It was an Interior Design Best of Year honoree in 2019 and has been produced by Nikari since 2025. With Poiat he designed the Fiori coffee tables, whose special edition carries his hand-carved wooden flowers.

For Maze he created the Parasol coffee tables, inspired by water lilies, which won a Red Dot Award in 2024. For Cappellini he designed the Giunto coffee tables with lens-shaped surfaces.

Recognition

Hartikainen was named Young Designer of the Year by Design Forum Finland in 2018. He received a Rising Talent Award at Maison&Objet in 2024 and the Pro Arte Award from the Didrichsen Art Museum in 2025. His work has been shown at Homo Faber in Venice, the Triennale Milano and the Fiskars Village Art & Design Biennale. It was also part of Design Beyond Things at Expo 2025 Osaka.