Interiors
6
★
House&Home
12 September/13 September 2015
FTWeekend
Interiors
Race for the Finnish A series of events will bring design from Finland to the forefront this autumn, showcasing the country’s simple interiors and setting it apart from its Nordic
common desire for independence from Russian rule. That independence came in 1917, but it was during the 1950s that Finnish design entered what is widely thought of as its golden age. In terms of style, the country offers similar raw materials to those of Scandinavia — namely, abundant wood and water — and its design shares the
neighbours. By Jessica Doyle
C
onsider Scandinavian design, and a certain image comes to mind: blonde wood; white walls; elegant yet functional furniture. But consider Finnish interiors, and that image might not be quite so clear. This autumn, a number of events will focus on Finnish design, which comes under the Scandinavian design tradition. They include a showcase at Tent London as part of the London Design Festival, providing an opportunity to discover what constitutes the Finnish aesthetic and how it can be distinguished from its Nordic neighbours. As the designer Harri Koskinen, who has worked for numerous Finnish brands and is design director of Iittala, says: “If you Google ‘Swedish design’, you get interiors; if you Google ‘Finnish design’, you get individual pieces.” Indeed, Finland produced some of the best-loved design classics of midcentury modernism, and many of those individual pieces are still in production today — among them Eero Saarinen’s Tulip table, Alvar Aalto’s revolutionary bent-plywood Paimio chair, and Kaj Franck’s Teema tableware.
However, these works are not always recognised elsewhere as essentially Finnish. According to Jukka Savolainen, director of the Design Museum in Helsinki: “Finnish, Danish and Swedish design is still seen under the Scandinavian design ‘brand’, which was created in the 1950s. One could argue that Finnish design has moved further from this design heritage, and therefore is not so readily recognised.” Within Finland, good design is part of everyday life — it’s said that everyone has an Aalto chair in the basement and Iittala glass in the cupboard — and, historically, it is a vital part of the national identity. “The applied arts have played a crucial role in Finnish history and the birth of the nation,” says the Design Museum’s chief curator Suvi Saloniemi, referencing the Finnish Pavilion at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1900, which architect Eliel (father of Eero) Saarinen used to express a
B Yellow grouse, €205, iittala.com; tumblers, €22.90, iittala.com; Tanssi plate, €32.50, iittala.com
‘The applied arts have played a crucial role in Finnish history and the birth of the nation’ modernist ethos of creating beautiful yet accessible furniture. However, it also has a language of its own. For Magnus Englund, of design company Skandium, which stocks many of Finland’s best-known brands, the country’s designers have an “obvious handwriting”: “It’s the purity and simplicity of the lines and the strict palette,” he says. “The materials they keep coming back to are birch, pure glass and white ceramics. It’s a very clean design.” Artek, the company that Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino formed in 1935, sums up this look; its birch 60 stool can be seen in Apple stores around the globe. Contrast is a defining element of
B Metsansielu screenprint, £235, sanna-annukka.com M Siirtolapuutarha teapot, £67, skandium.com
Finnish design, and the flip side of this quiet simplicity is a sense of humour and playfulness — what Englund calls a “mischievous streak” — which can be seen in Oiva Toikka’s characterful glass birds for Iittala and in Eero Aarnio’s futuristic Bubble and Ball chairs of the 1960s. Another brand that made its name at this time is the textile house Marimekko. After the austerity of the 1940s, during which Finland was burdened with crippling war debts to Russia, there was a yearning for beauty and optimism. Marimekko supplied this in the form of bold and colourful prints, which burst into the global consciousness when Jacqueline Kennedy bought seven of its dresses during the 1960 presidential campaign. More than five decades later, the
★
12 September/13 September 2015
FTWeekend House&Home
7
Interiors K Unikko fabric, £39 per metre, skandium.com
her Lyyli trinket boxes; Johanna Gullichsen, who weaves Scandinavian textile traditions into her modern geometric fabrics; and Himmee, with its Toad lamp complete with bent plywood base referencing Artek’s pioneering works. Artek turns 80 in October, and will mark the occasion by releasing limited editions of two archive pieces, a bentwood sculpture and the Maison Louis Carré table, designed for the French collector in 1958. The company has also reissued the TW003 pendant lamp by designer Tapio Wirkkala, the centenary of whose birth falls this year, and will be marked by an exhibition in Helsinki curated by Hoskinen. Aarnio, still working in his eighties, will be celebrated in a major exhibition at Helsinki’s Design Museum next spring. This activity reflects a sense of excitement about the design scene, says chief curator Savolainen: “There is an energy vibrating in the air.” Perhaps, with the centenary of Finland’s independence in 2017 affording another surge of national pride, a second golden age of Finnish design is on the horizon.
I Sielulintu, from £120, sanna-annukka.com
company has an established interiors arm, producing everything from tableware to oven gloves. Marimekko textiles also embody another contrast within Finnish design, and another of its defining features: a dichotomy between a restrained, monochrome palette on one hand, and bright, joyful colour on the other. Its most famous design, the splashy Unikko poppy print of 1964, remains popular today, and comes in a variety of colours, along with a modern reinterpretation featuring an overlaid grid motif, created to mark its 50th anniversary last year. Whether expressed via colour, material or form, nature is the true touchstone of Finnish design. Sanna Annukka, an AngloFinnish designer based in Brighton, England, who works
for Marimekko and produces her own screen prints and accessories, says: “Finnish design is essentially the ability to weave the natural world into everyday life.” In Annukka’s work, nature is explored through tradition and storytelling, as it is in the work of Londonbased Klaus Haapaniemi, one of the biggest names in contemporary Finnish design, who has designed for Iittala, Marimekko, and — most recently — the Finnish National Opera. Nature and folklore are key features of Haapaniemi’s fairytale designs, but for him, interestingly, the historical connection to Russia is also very much still in evidence.
B Rocket stool, £216, skandium.com K Lyyli box, from €239, katriina nuutinen.fi
“The Slavic aesthetic is very close to the Finnish mind,” he says. “All of my work is influenced by Russian design, the colours as well as the forms and shapes.” This eastern influence can be seen in the Firebird scarf in his new collection, a reference to the mythical bird of Russian folklore. For Haapaniemi, as for Koskinen, individuality runs through his country’s design heritage: “It’s never anonymous; there’s always the designer in the background.” However, Haapaniemi, Koskinen and Englund say there is perhaps something in the national psyche keeping Finnish designers from being centre stage. “We’re a bit closed,” says Koskinen. “We don’t make a noise.” Haapaniemi agrees: “Finnish people think the work should speak for itself.” Tent London’s director Jimmy MacDonald picked up on the lack of representation abroad, a catalyst for this year’s Finnish Form showcase: “Finnish designers have had little or no profile during LDF, but we know there’s a lot going on there,” he says. Some of the designers taking part are Katriina Nuutinen, who combines jewel-toned mouth-blown glass, birch and maple in
B Firebird silk scarf, £155, klaush.com K RuutuUnikko tray, £26, skandium. com
Q&A with Marva Griffin The organiser of SaloneSatellite, Milan’s young designers’ fair, on why it is important to give emerging talent a strong platform How was SaloneSatellite founded? In 1997 Manlio Armellini, managing director of Cosmit (the body that organises Salone del Mobile), asked me to put SaloneSatellite into orbit. So I drew up a list of young designers I knew were anxious to be present at Salone del Mobile, from cities including Munich, London, New York and Milan, asking them to “spread the news” among their colleagues. SaloneSatellite was established in 1998, hosting designers, architects, creatives, universities and design schools from across the world. Why is the show so important for young designers? When I founded SaloneSatellite there were no furniture design fairs promoting young designers. After the success of the inaugural event, many well-known furniture fairs copied our formula. For a young designer back then, it was almost impossible to reach a producer to show them their designs. The event’s objective is to expose young people to the interior design furniture industry, that is: Salone del Mobile. There, companies visit SaloneSatellite every morning to oversee these prototypes and start up a relationship with young designers. How do you respond to criticism that the Milan fair is too focused on new releases and not enough on design quality? I visit quite a lot of fairs worldwide and Milan is where I see innovation and new products, and these then tend to be repurposed at other fairs and design festivals.
What advice would you give to young designers? After leaving school or university, work on your creativity by undertaking special projects that are new, simple and useful. Take risks and don’t be afraid — it helps.
★
House&Home
12 September/13 September 2015
FTWeekend
Interiors
Race for the Finnish A series of events will bring design from Finland to the forefront this autumn, showcasing the country’s simple interiors and setting it apart from its Nordic
common desire for independence from Russian rule. That independence came in 1917, but it was during the 1950s that Finnish design entered what is widely thought of as its golden age. In terms of style, the country offers similar raw materials to those of Scandinavia — namely, abundant wood and water — and its design shares the
neighbours. By Jessica Doyle
C
onsider Scandinavian design, and a certain image comes to mind: blonde wood; white walls; elegant yet functional furniture. But consider Finnish interiors, and that image might not be quite so clear. This autumn, a number of events will focus on Finnish design, which comes under the Scandinavian design tradition. They include a showcase at Tent London as part of the London Design Festival, providing an opportunity to discover what constitutes the Finnish aesthetic and how it can be distinguished from its Nordic neighbours. As the designer Harri Koskinen, who has worked for numerous Finnish brands and is design director of Iittala, says: “If you Google ‘Swedish design’, you get interiors; if you Google ‘Finnish design’, you get individual pieces.” Indeed, Finland produced some of the best-loved design classics of midcentury modernism, and many of those individual pieces are still in production today — among them Eero Saarinen’s Tulip table, Alvar Aalto’s revolutionary bent-plywood Paimio chair, and Kaj Franck’s Teema tableware.
However, these works are not always recognised elsewhere as essentially Finnish. According to Jukka Savolainen, director of the Design Museum in Helsinki: “Finnish, Danish and Swedish design is still seen under the Scandinavian design ‘brand’, which was created in the 1950s. One could argue that Finnish design has moved further from this design heritage, and therefore is not so readily recognised.” Within Finland, good design is part of everyday life — it’s said that everyone has an Aalto chair in the basement and Iittala glass in the cupboard — and, historically, it is a vital part of the national identity. “The applied arts have played a crucial role in Finnish history and the birth of the nation,” says the Design Museum’s chief curator Suvi Saloniemi, referencing the Finnish Pavilion at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1900, which architect Eliel (father of Eero) Saarinen used to express a
B Yellow grouse, €205, iittala.com; tumblers, €22.90, iittala.com; Tanssi plate, €32.50, iittala.com
‘The applied arts have played a crucial role in Finnish history and the birth of the nation’ modernist ethos of creating beautiful yet accessible furniture. However, it also has a language of its own. For Magnus Englund, of design company Skandium, which stocks many of Finland’s best-known brands, the country’s designers have an “obvious handwriting”: “It’s the purity and simplicity of the lines and the strict palette,” he says. “The materials they keep coming back to are birch, pure glass and white ceramics. It’s a very clean design.” Artek, the company that Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino formed in 1935, sums up this look; its birch 60 stool can be seen in Apple stores around the globe. Contrast is a defining element of
B Metsansielu screenprint, £235, sanna-annukka.com M Siirtolapuutarha teapot, £67, skandium.com
Finnish design, and the flip side of this quiet simplicity is a sense of humour and playfulness — what Englund calls a “mischievous streak” — which can be seen in Oiva Toikka’s characterful glass birds for Iittala and in Eero Aarnio’s futuristic Bubble and Ball chairs of the 1960s. Another brand that made its name at this time is the textile house Marimekko. After the austerity of the 1940s, during which Finland was burdened with crippling war debts to Russia, there was a yearning for beauty and optimism. Marimekko supplied this in the form of bold and colourful prints, which burst into the global consciousness when Jacqueline Kennedy bought seven of its dresses during the 1960 presidential campaign. More than five decades later, the
★
12 September/13 September 2015
FTWeekend House&Home
7
Interiors K Unikko fabric, £39 per metre, skandium.com
her Lyyli trinket boxes; Johanna Gullichsen, who weaves Scandinavian textile traditions into her modern geometric fabrics; and Himmee, with its Toad lamp complete with bent plywood base referencing Artek’s pioneering works. Artek turns 80 in October, and will mark the occasion by releasing limited editions of two archive pieces, a bentwood sculpture and the Maison Louis Carré table, designed for the French collector in 1958. The company has also reissued the TW003 pendant lamp by designer Tapio Wirkkala, the centenary of whose birth falls this year, and will be marked by an exhibition in Helsinki curated by Hoskinen. Aarnio, still working in his eighties, will be celebrated in a major exhibition at Helsinki’s Design Museum next spring. This activity reflects a sense of excitement about the design scene, says chief curator Savolainen: “There is an energy vibrating in the air.” Perhaps, with the centenary of Finland’s independence in 2017 affording another surge of national pride, a second golden age of Finnish design is on the horizon.
I Sielulintu, from £120, sanna-annukka.com
company has an established interiors arm, producing everything from tableware to oven gloves. Marimekko textiles also embody another contrast within Finnish design, and another of its defining features: a dichotomy between a restrained, monochrome palette on one hand, and bright, joyful colour on the other. Its most famous design, the splashy Unikko poppy print of 1964, remains popular today, and comes in a variety of colours, along with a modern reinterpretation featuring an overlaid grid motif, created to mark its 50th anniversary last year. Whether expressed via colour, material or form, nature is the true touchstone of Finnish design. Sanna Annukka, an AngloFinnish designer based in Brighton, England, who works
for Marimekko and produces her own screen prints and accessories, says: “Finnish design is essentially the ability to weave the natural world into everyday life.” In Annukka’s work, nature is explored through tradition and storytelling, as it is in the work of Londonbased Klaus Haapaniemi, one of the biggest names in contemporary Finnish design, who has designed for Iittala, Marimekko, and — most recently — the Finnish National Opera. Nature and folklore are key features of Haapaniemi’s fairytale designs, but for him, interestingly, the historical connection to Russia is also very much still in evidence.
B Rocket stool, £216, skandium.com K Lyyli box, from €239, katriina nuutinen.fi
“The Slavic aesthetic is very close to the Finnish mind,” he says. “All of my work is influenced by Russian design, the colours as well as the forms and shapes.” This eastern influence can be seen in the Firebird scarf in his new collection, a reference to the mythical bird of Russian folklore. For Haapaniemi, as for Koskinen, individuality runs through his country’s design heritage: “It’s never anonymous; there’s always the designer in the background.” However, Haapaniemi, Koskinen and Englund say there is perhaps something in the national psyche keeping Finnish designers from being centre stage. “We’re a bit closed,” says Koskinen. “We don’t make a noise.” Haapaniemi agrees: “Finnish people think the work should speak for itself.” Tent London’s director Jimmy MacDonald picked up on the lack of representation abroad, a catalyst for this year’s Finnish Form showcase: “Finnish designers have had little or no profile during LDF, but we know there’s a lot going on there,” he says. Some of the designers taking part are Katriina Nuutinen, who combines jewel-toned mouth-blown glass, birch and maple in
B Firebird silk scarf, £155, klaush.com K RuutuUnikko tray, £26, skandium. com
Q&A with Marva Griffin The organiser of SaloneSatellite, Milan’s young designers’ fair, on why it is important to give emerging talent a strong platform How was SaloneSatellite founded? In 1997 Manlio Armellini, managing director of Cosmit (the body that organises Salone del Mobile), asked me to put SaloneSatellite into orbit. So I drew up a list of young designers I knew were anxious to be present at Salone del Mobile, from cities including Munich, London, New York and Milan, asking them to “spread the news” among their colleagues. SaloneSatellite was established in 1998, hosting designers, architects, creatives, universities and design schools from across the world. Why is the show so important for young designers? When I founded SaloneSatellite there were no furniture design fairs promoting young designers. After the success of the inaugural event, many well-known furniture fairs copied our formula. For a young designer back then, it was almost impossible to reach a producer to show them their designs. The event’s objective is to expose young people to the interior design furniture industry, that is: Salone del Mobile. There, companies visit SaloneSatellite every morning to oversee these prototypes and start up a relationship with young designers. How do you respond to criticism that the Milan fair is too focused on new releases and not enough on design quality? I visit quite a lot of fairs worldwide and Milan is where I see innovation and new products, and these then tend to be repurposed at other fairs and design festivals.
What advice would you give to young designers? After leaving school or university, work on your creativity by undertaking special projects that are new, simple and useful. Take risks and don’t be afraid — it helps.
