Studio Visit: Concrete and Olive Wood
Inside the studio of furniture maker Ignacio Soler, who pairs board-marked concrete with thousand-year-old olive wood from the Granada plateau.
By Editorial Team · Updated 06 OCT 2026
Soler's studio showing concrete and olive wood furniture
The Studio
Ignacio Soler works from a 150-square-metre space in the Málaga arts district, a room that smells of sawdust and wet cement. His pieces — dining tables, benches, credenzas — pair two materials that share nothing in common: board-marked concrete and olive wood harvested from trees that are 800 to 1,200 years old.
The Materials
The olive wood comes from trees that have stopped fruiting — declared non-productive by their olive cooperatives and cleared for replanting. Soler works with a single supplier in Granada who mills the trunks within 48 hours of felling. The wood is then air-dried for 22 months before it enters the studio.
Concrete is the bone. Olive wood is the memory.
The Process
Each piece begins with the wood. Soler selects a slab, lets it acclimatise in the studio for three weeks, then casts the concrete base against a formwork keyed to the wood's natural edge. The two materials meet at a visible joint — no adhesive, no hidden fasteners. The weight of the concrete holds the wood in place.
“The daily record is where a place reveals its actual rhythm.”
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