NOT FAR FROM THE TRUNK Solid wood is closest to the tree: boards, strips or beams cut from the whole trunk are processed into solid, durable furniture. Everything is permitted on the surface, from finely sanded to raw, and knotholes and cracks are entirely desirable, depending on taste. However, there are no limits to sophistication, as Japanese craftsmanship in particular proves with its literally sophisticated wood joints. What we welcome: Recently, damaged wood with all its peculiarities has also been given a chance.

BENDING INSTEAD OF GLUING Mankind has known for thousands of years that wood can be bent along the grain under the influence of pressure, heat and moisture. Perfected in the 19th century, the bentwood process involves boiling solid wooden sticks in steam and then bending them into a shape. After cooling, the wood retains its final shape. Bentwood furniture often consists of just a few parts and requires very little material and no glue or binding agents - making the process more relevant today than ever before.

LIGHTWEIGHT STRENGTH Multiplex boards are the powerhouses among wood-based materials: Because at least five layers of birch or beech veneer are glued together, multiplex is particularly stable and resilient. In addition, the layers are cross-laminated, which means that the grain direction of the wood is rotated by 90 degrees. The boards are available with an untreated surface or coated; the phenolic resin-coated version is popular as a so-called screen printing board in furniture construction. A close relative is laminated wood, in which the veneer layers are glued together in the same grain direction.

PRESSED IN SHELL Cross-laminated veneers can be shaped under pressure and heat in a similar way to bentwood - in special presses and on an industrial scale. By the middle of the twentieth century, the technology was so advanced that the possibilities of molded wood really inspired designers. The organically curved seat shells of the 1950s and 60s have become classics of furniture history.

PANEL CONSTRUCTION Medium-density fiberboard, or MDF for short, is a material innovation from the 1980s and consists of finely ground solid wood fibers and a synthetic binder. The highly compressed, homogeneous boards are stable, resilient and score points for surface stability. In its untreated form, MDF has a finely textured, wood-colored surface. As a bending and tension-resistant panel material, it is often used in furniture and interior design and can be milled and coated.