Alvar Aalto (1898–1976) had a thriving practice as an architect and object designer in his native Finland from the 1920s to the 1970s. A graduate of the Helsinki Institute of Technology, he produced early designs centered on Nordic Classicism, yet he turned to the International Style after traveling in Europe. Aalto is best known, however, for his forays into organic design that utilized natural materials. For the majority of his projects, he also designed all the interior furnishings and fittings in addition to the exterior architecture. In this manner, his buildings and homes represent a Finnish version of Gesamptkunstwerk (total work of art). Aalto commented on this philosophy: “My furniture is seldom, if ever, the result of professional design work. Almost without exception I have done them as part of an architectonic wholeness, in the mixed society of public buildings, aristocratic residences and workers’ cottages, as an accompaniment to architecture.”¹

One of Aalto’s most important projects was the Paimio Sanatorium in Turku, Finland. In 1929 Aalto and his architect wife, Aino, won a competition to design a purpose-built medical complex for the treatment of tuberculosis. The hospital was meant to provide light, air, and rest for patients, and its location in Turku proved to be an ideal location for healing. The Aaltos’ building was in the International Style with its stated function at the heart of the design (fig. 1.1). The interiors, fittings, and furnishings were designed by the Aaltos. Whereas the patient bedrooms, reading rooms, and sun terraces, among others, featured tubular steel furniture, some of the common rooms had furnishings made from wood.

Beginning with his first attempts at creating a molded plywood chair for serial production in 1929, Aalto undertook significant technical research with the help of Otto Korhonen, the technical manager of the Turku-based joinery firm Huonekalu-ja Rakennustyötehdas, to create his furniture. Korhonen helped Aalto design laminated-wood studies and experiments that resulted in his being able to achieve the curved designs for which he would become famous. Indeed, Aalto’s wood furniture designs from this period were recognized for what he described as their “combination of sound construction, suitability to use and sense of style. Any one of the chairs is the result not only of a painstaking study of posture, the properties of laminated wood and esthetic considerations, but also the study of efficient (and consequently economical) mechanical methods of mass-production.”²

Perhaps one of Aalto’s most significant furniture designs is Armchair, Model 41 from the sanatorium. Used in the patient’s lounge, the cantilevered chair was made from bent plywood and birch, one of Finland’s most common trees. Its now iconic design features different thicknesses of laminated wood formed into rolling curves for the ergonomic seat and perforated back, as well as a seemingly continuous-shaped line for the frame. Much has been written about Aalto’s design being a response to Marcel Breuer’s cantilevered Wassily armchair (1925) in tubular steel. While certainly indebted to Breuer’s club chair, this armchair’s organic nature and use of wood signaled Aalto’s move beyond the International Style. Aalto said, “For much of this nickel and chrome-plated steel furniture seemed to us to be psychologically too hard for an environment of sick persons. We thus began working with wood, using this warmer and more supple material in combination to create an appropriate furnishing style for patients.”³

In its first few years, the Model 41 was exhibited widely, including in Milan (1933 and 1936), London (1933), Zurich and Stockholm (1934), and Brussels (1935). The success of the Paimio furniture from these showings, and the related stress of filling orders, led Aalto to established Artek in 1935. The company produced his furniture designs, therefore enabling him to control serial production as well as outsource its production. Artek continues to manufacture the Model 41 armchair today. At different times in its history, the firm partnered with other manufacturers and distributors across the globe to produce it. In 1981 Artek undertook legal action against unauthorized companies who were making unlicensed examples. Its success in court required that all unauthorized copies be labeled as such, a requirement that continues to this day. —Cindi Strauss