Alvar Aalto: A Master of Timeless Design
Alvar Aalto was born in 1898 in Kuortane, Finland. He died in Helsinki in 1976. He was a famous architect and furniture designer. Aalto studied architecture in Helsinki and graduated in 1921. His career did not start well in the Finnish capital and he moved to a small town to found an office there.
During the 1920's and 1940's, Alvar Aalto designed many famous landmarks while working in Finland. The most famous works include different table designs and lamps. He employed a young glass and furniture designer whom he later married and had two children with. In the 1940's Alvar was a professor at MIT.
Alvar Aalto's stamp on the world was not limited to furniture design; he is remembered as much for his lamp models that have endured for over 80 years as for his classic tables, chairs, and children's furniture. His first lighting designs were created when he was still a student at Helsinki's University of Technology, and he was an award-winner even then. He continued creating lamps after he co-founded a furniture design company with fellow artists Aino Aalto, Maire Gullischen and Nils-Gustav Hahl.
Before he even graduated, Alvar Aalto began designing his first furniture. Once in his new architecture office, he received a huge order to design furniture for six churches in Finland. He designed the well known Paimio Sanatorium in 1929. He also designed each piece of furniture in the structure, as well as the lamps. For each structure he designed, he also designed custom "Aalto tables (Aalto bord)" and other furniture for it.
At this time he started to patent his methods for bending wood and he was awarded several patents in many countries for this new form of laminated bent-plywood furniture. The Alvar Aalto 901 tea cart is famous for this bent wood construction along with various chairs and Aalto tables. Together with other famous designers such as Bruno Mathsson and Yngve Ekstrom, Aalto became renowned for this style of furniture design which contributed greatly to the concept of "Scandinavian Modern" design.
Alvar Aalto revolutionized the worlds of furniture design and architecture with the style he called "Organic Functionalism". He is known today as the Father of Modernism, and the Alvar Aalto Medal (created by the Museum of Finnish Architecture and the Finnish Association of Architects) is awarded today to those who are deemed to have made important and creative contributions to the field of architecture. He and his wife are remembered jointly for their glassware designs, perhaps the most famous of which today is the Aalto Vase.
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About the Author: Alvar Aalto's stamp on the world was not limited to furniture (möbler) design; he is remembered as much for his lamp models that have endured for over 80 years as for his classic tables, chairs, and children's furniture. Once in his new architecture office, he received a huge order to design his Aalto furniture for six churches in Finland. He designed the well known Paimio Sanatorium in 1929. He also designed each piece of furniture for the interior (inredning) of the structure, as well as the Aalto lamp. For many structures he designed, he also designed custom furniture for it.
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