This armchair, and others like it, stem from Aaltos Armchair 41, designed in 1930.
Aalto was concerned with bent laminated and ply-wood, searching out its strengths in curves and in cantilever structures.
He had designed a cantilever chair in 1930, using a formed plywood seat/back on a metal frame, but after three years of experimenting, during which he laminated and formed the wood himself in many variations.