Alvar Aalto - Nordic Design London Wednesday, September 25, 2013 | Phillips
  • Literature

    'Finmar: Furniture of the future for the home of To-day', Finmar, sales catalogue, London, 1939, p. 27
    Pirkko Tuukkanen, ed., Alvar Aalto Designer, Helsinki, 2002, pp. 167, 169
    Thomas Kellein, ed. alvar & aino aalto. design collection bischofberger, exh. cat., Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Zurich, 2005, p. 109

  • Artist Biography

    Alvar Aalto

    Finnish • 1898 - 1976

    In contrast with the functionalism of the International Style (as well the neoclassicism put forward by the Nazi and Soviet regimes), Alvar Aalto brought a refreshing breath of humanism to modern design: "True architecture exists only where man stands in the center," he wrote. Aalto designed furniture in stack-laminated plywood composed of Finnish birch, which was cost-effective and lent warmth to his interiors. Aalto also revived Finnish glass design with his entries in the various Karhula-Iitala glassworks competitions throughout the 1930s.

    In 1936 he won first place for a collection of colorful, wavy vases in various sizes titled Eskimoerindens skinnbuxa (The Eskimo Woman’s Leather Breeches). The vases were an immediate success and the most popular size, now known as the "Savoy" vase, is still in production today. Aalto's freeform designs, in harmony with human needs and nature, anticipated the organic modernism of the 1950s and 1960s; in particular, his innovations in bent plywood had a major impact on designers such as Charles and Ray Eames.

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205

Shelf unit, model no. 111

circa 1934
Bent birch laminated plywood, birch laminated plywood.
53 x 83 x 29.4 cm (20 7/8 x 32 5/8 x 11 5/8 in.)
Manufactured by O.y. Huonekalu-ja Rakennustyötehdas A.b., Turku, for Artek, Finland.

Estimate
£7,000 - 9,000 

Sold for £13,750

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Nordic Design

London 26 September 2013