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Moni bhardwaj
Alvar Aalto
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (February 3 1898 May 11 1976) was
a
Finnish architect and designer. His work includes
architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware.
Aalto's early career runs in parallel with the rapid economic
growth and industrialization of Finland during the first half of the
twentieth century and many of his clients were industrialists;
among these were the Ahlstrm-Gullichsen family.
The span of his career, from the 1920s to the 1970s, is
reflected in the styles of his work, ranging from Nordic
Classicism of the early work, to a rational International
Style Modernism during the 1930s to a more organic
modernist style from the 1940s onwards.
What is typical for his entire career, however, is a concern
for design as a Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art;
whereby he - together with his first wife Aino Aalto - would
design not just the building, but give special treatments to
the interior surfaces and design furniture, lamps, and
furnishings and glassware.
The Alvar Aalto Museum, designed by Aalto himself, is located
in what is regarded as his home city Jyvskyl.
Life
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was born in Kuortane, Finland. His father, Johan Henrik
Aalto, was a Finnish-speaking land-surveyor and his mother, Selly (Selma) Matilda
(ne Hackstedt) was a postmistress. When Aalto was 5 years old, the family
moved to Alajrvi, and from there to Jyvskyl in Central Finland. Aalto studied at
the Jyvskyl Lyceum school, completing his basic education in 1916. In 1916 he
then enrolled to study architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology,
graduating in 1921.
In 1923 he returned to Jyvskyl, where he opened his first architectural
office. Jyvskyl would become a notable city for his architecture, with more
buildings designed by him than in any other city. The following year he married
architect Aino Marsio. Their honeymoon journey to Italy sealed an intellectual bond
with the culture of the Mediterranean region that was to remain important to Aalto
for the rest of his life. The Aaltos moved their office to Turku in 1927, and started
collaborating with architect Erik Bryggman. The office moved again in 1933 to
Helsinki.
The Aaltos designed and built a joint house-office (193536) for themselves in
Munkkiniemi, Helsinki, but later (195456) had a purpose-built office built in the
same neighbourhood - the latter building nowadays houses the Alvar Aalto
Academy. Aino and Alvar Aalto had 2 children, a daughter Johanna "Hanni"
Alanen, born Aalto, 1925, and a son Hamilkar Aalto, 1928. In 1926 the young
Aaltos designed and had built a summer cottage in Alajrvi, Villa Flora. Aino Aalto
died of cancer in 1949. In 1952 Aalto married architect Elissa Mkiniemi (died
1994), who had been working as an assistant in his office. In 1952 Aalto designed
and had built a summer cottage, the so-called Experimental House, for himself and
his new wife in Muuratsalo in Central Finland. Alvar Aalto died on May 11 1976, in
Helsinki.
Alvar Alto, Gunnar Asplund and Sven Markelius from Sweden and many
others of that generation in the Nordic countries had in common was that
they started off from a classical education and were first designing in the socalled Nordic Classicism style a style that had been a reaction to the
previous dominant style of National Romanticism before moving, in the late
1920s, towards Modernism.
Paimio Sanatorium
Viipuri Library
Works
Aalto's career spans the changes in style from (Nordic Classicism) to purist
International Style Modernism to a more personal, synthetic and idiosyncratic
Modernism. Aalto's wide field of design activity ranges from the large scale of city
planning and architecture to interior design, furniture and glassware design and
painting. It has been estimated that during his entire career Aalto designed over
500 individual buildings, approximately 300 of which were built, the vast
majority of which are in Finland. He also has a few buildings in the France, Germany,
Italy and the USA.
Aalto claimed that his paintings were not made as individual artworks but as
part of his process of architectural design, and many of his small-scale
"sculptural" experiments with wood led to later larger architectural details and
forms. These experiments also led to a number of patents: for example, he
invented a new form of laminated bent-plywood furniture in 1932. His
experimental method had been influenced by his meetings with various members of
the Bauhaus design school, especially Lszl Moholy-Nagy, whom he first met in
1930. Aalto's furniture was exhibited in London in 1935, to great critical acclaim, and
to cope with the consumer demand Aalto, together with his wife Aino, Maire
Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl founded the company Artek that same year. Aalto
glassware (Aino as well as Alvar) is manufactured by Iittala.
Aalto's 'High Stool' and 'Stool E60' (manufactured by Artek) are currently used in
Apple stores across the world to serve as seating for customers. Finished in black
lacquer, the stools are used to seat customers at the 'Genius Bar' and also in other
areas of the store at times when seating is required for a product workshop or
special event.