PEATLAND Black Stool

alcarol has recovered extraordinary black oak trunks from a small Alpine peatland, radiocarbon-dated to the 5th century BC. In these oxygen-poor wetlands, buried wood survived ancient time: minerals and iron salts reacted with its tannins, gradually colouring it from deep brown to near black and increasing its density.
The peat-preserved oak emerges now as a solid block, a fragment of nature and time, carefully seized, cut and shaped. In the Peatland Stool, this block becomes a seat—a sectioned monument of matter, where the tree’s history is frozen and re-embodied.
Natural live edges remain intact, celebrating erosion and age. Transparent elements echo the water that once protected the wood, while the sectioned surfaces invite touch—so you may feel the warm organic vibrancy of a material millions of moments in the making.
Here is more than a stool: it is a fragmented relic of deep time, recast in contemporary form. A piece where wood, water, earth and time converge into a singular presence—rooted in the past, present in the now.