Artek (company)
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Artek is a Finnish furniture company. It was founded in December, 1935 by architect Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino Aalto, visual arts promoter Maire Gullichsen (Ahlström — Gullichsen family) and art historian Nils-Gustav Hahl. The main aim of the venture was to promote the furniture and glassware of Alvar Aalto, and to produce furnishings for his buildings.
The name Artek manifests the desire to combine art and technology, echoing a main idea of the International Style movement - to emphasize the technical expertise in production and quality of materials, instead of frivolous ornaments.
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[edit] Representative furniture
[edit] Paimio Chair
Alvar Aalto was known for giving the International Style a Finnish twist. He sought a more organic style, frequently choosing to feature nature - a defining characteristic of Finnish romanticism. The Paimio Chair designed for the Paimio Sanatorium was Aalto's take on the Wassily Chair - he replaced cold steel with warm wood. The degree of bending of the wood tested the technical limits of that time.
The chair is part of the collection at MoMA.
[edit] 3 Leg Stool 60
The Model No. 60 stool, designed circa 1932-1933, demonstrated Alvar Aalto's interest in basic functional, utilitarian forms. It was constructed of bent laminated birch, and originally came in all natural (plain) or curled birch, or with a black, red, or blue seat with natural (plain) legs.
[edit] 3 Leg Stool X600
The X600 evolved from the 60. The handmade legs have the portions attached to the seat opening up into a fan, showing simultaneously the bent wood characteristic of Artek furniture and the fan motif that runs through Aalto's architecture.
