ALVAR AALTO FURNITURE
Juhani Pallasmaa [Editor]
Juhani Pallasmaa [Editor]: ALVAR AALTO FURNITURE. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1985. First edition. Square quarto. Brown cloth titled in blue. Printed dust jacket. 179 pp. 279 color and black and white illustrations. Printed vellum sheets. Multiple paper stocks. Dust jacket lightly rubbed and nicked to top edges. A nearly fine copy in a very good or better dust jacket.
8.375 x 9.5 hardcover book with 179 pages and 279 color and black and white illustrations. Published in conjunction with the Museum of Finnish Architecture, the Finnish Society of Arts and Crafts, and Artek. Includes Aalto's statement for an exhibition of his work in 1954; introduction by Pallasmaa; essays by Igor Herier, Goran Schildt, Marja-Liisa Parko; excerpts from Aalto's articles; chronology; selection of Artek's standard models; fixed furniture in Aalto's architecture.
"Modern architecture does not mean using immature new materials; the main thing is to work with materials towards a more human line." - Alvar Aalto
Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (1898 – 1976) was not only influenced by the landscape of his native country, but by the political struggle over Finland's place within European culture. After early neoclassical buildings, Alvar Aalto turned to ideas based on Functionalism, subsequently moving toward more organic structures, with brick and wood replacing plaster and steel. In addition to designing buildings, furniture, lamps, and glass objects with his wife Aino, he painted and was an avid traveler. A firm believer that buildings have a crucial role in shaping society, Aalto once said, “The duty of the architect is to give life a more sensitive structure.”
An eloquent humanist, as well as one of the great architects and designers of the 20th century, Alvar Aalto breathed life and warmth into modernism, placing emphasis on organic geometry, supple, natural materials and respect for the human element. “Architecture,” he said, “must have charm; it is a factor of beauty in society. But real beauty is not a conception of form... it is the result of harmony between several intrinsic factors, not the least, the social.” Aalto’s intention was to create integrated environments to be experienced through all the senses and to design furniture that would be at once modern, human and specifically Finnish.
Using native birch wood and plywood and his own new bentwood techniques, Aalto created his classic Lounge Chair, the curvilinear Wood Screen designed for the Finnish Pavilion and his iconic stacking stool. These pieces represent his virtuosity with form and structure and firmly established Aalto’s genius and fluency with wood, which he described as the “form-inspiring, deeply human material.” Their natural beauty also made waves among the European avant-garde, better known for high-minded austerity than for warmth.
Aalto’s work was enthusiastically received in the United States, and the Museum of Modern Art organized a major exhibition of his work in 1938. A year later, Aalto completed the Finnish Pavilion for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Frank Lloyd Wright, upon viewing the Pavilion, said simply, “Aalto is a genius.”
For historical reference, here is an article from the July 15, 1940 issue of TIME magazine titled "Furniture by Assembly Line:"
”In 1925 modern tubular furniture was born. Its birthplace was the Bauhaus, famed German school of architecture and design which Nazis later turned into a domestic science school for girls. It had a bony infancy. Fad-hungry interior decorators pounced on its chromium steel chairs and glass-topped tables. But many a buyer found it short on fun, however long on function. Trouble was—and still is—that metal furniture was cold in surface and line, clammy or hot according to the weather.
“Meanwhile, in Finland, a brilliant young architect named Alvar Aalto and his architect wife, Aino, really got somewhere with modern furniture. Influenced by the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier (real name: Charles-Edouard Jeanneret), but experimenting in plywood instead of steel, they smoothed out geometric kinks, turned out chairs which combined the functional with good sense and charm. The Aaltos were the first to make chairs with pliant one-piece backs and resilient seats. They pioneered also in welding together layers of plywood with synthetic cement, cold-pressing them for six weeks into posture-pleasing shapes.
“Exhibited on the Continent, in London, at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art (in 1938), their light, satiny furniture brought the Aaltos international renown, put them in the front rank of modern furniture designers. (Also well acknowledged by then was stocky, bush-browed Alvar Aalto's high rank among living architects.)
“Last week Alvar and Aino Aalto opened their own furniture store (Artek-Pascoe, Inc.) in Manhattan. The Aaltos' plywood sandwiches of maple and birch are shaped in Wisconsin, shipped East for assembly. Colors of the finished pieces of furniture—many of them Aalto-patented—ranged from natural finish through cellulosed red and blue to black. On display also went Aalto-designed screens and glassware.
“The excellence of the Aalto furniture may help to discourage manufacture of some furniture that now passes for modern. The Aalto purpose is to use U. S. mass production to get their designs into ordinary U. S. homes. Though their simple, substantial furniture is well fitted for mass production, the Aalto assembly line has not yet cut prices to the ordinary buyer's range. In full operation, it will retail an armchair now priced at $29.50 for $19, a $47 chest of drawers for $24, a $15 side table for $9. The Aaltos have already attained space-saving by designing stools that nest into each other, side chairs and even armchairs that can be stacked 20 high to save space."