( 1 ) The prominent art deco designer Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann reserved amboyna burl—the rarest and most expensive of burls—for his most prestigious commissions. At the height of his fame, a single bed made from the wood was said to cost more than a large house.
Object MattersOn the beauty of burl wood.
Object MattersOn the beauty of burl wood.
In recent years, designers have been embracing imperfection. Where once, pale, uniform timbers epitomized good taste; now, it's woods marked by an idiosyncratic swirl of colors, knots and grain. Burl wood sits at the forefront of this shift. Technically a deformity—an irregular growth on a tree caused by stress, injury or fungus—it produces rich, almost psychedelic patterns when cut and polished.
Designers have long recognized burl wood’s allure: It was prized in 17th- and 18th-century Europe for ornate cabinets and desks, revived in the art deco era with sleek, lacquered veneers and embraced mid-century for bold, sculptural forms.1 Noticing its resurgence in the 2010s, family-run Italian brand Meola Interiors shifted from sourcing antiques to working with artisans to produce statement furniture in the material.
“Burl delivers that sense of style, depth and rarity, while also reflecting a heritage of craftsmanship,” notes the company’s creative leads, Vincenzo Meola and Joel Gibson. Most recently, the brand has begun exploring the use of olive burl—a timber with an extraordinary swirling grain deeply rooted in Italian tradition. “Ecologically, it’s a great option. Cutting the burl doesn’t kill the tree; in fact, it can help the tree redirect energy back into producing olives.”
Other designers, it seems, can’t get enough: Rose Uniacke has created side tables in burl, and Studio Ashby and Tatjana von Stein have embraced it in their interiors too—a reflection of a growing appetite for design that is tactile, storied and, by definition, unique.
