Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto, a Scandinavian architect from Finland, was a unique functionalist and expressionist architect who was adept at handling the mixture of materials, light, and space. He strove for architecture that worked comfortably with tradition, nature, mechanization, flexibility and standardization. His differentiation in design around the world was partly due to his balancing and integration of topography, climate, nature, and national traditions.
INTERESTING FACTS
The eldest of three children his father was a surveyor.
A Finnish architect who designed buildings and town plans, furniture, glassware, and jewelry.
Designed Finnish Pavilions for the 1936 World’s Fair in Paris and the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.
Designed a vase that was shown in the 1937 World’s Fair of Paris. The theme of the fair was “ "Art and Technology in Modern Life” and the vase was apart of the housewares collection. The vase has been produced and for 70 years and is currently for sale from the Iittala factory in Finland.
His furniture designs were experiments of sorts. He was one of the first to use bent-wood and plywood, and also designed anthropomorphic stackable stools.
Frank Lloyd Wright called Aalto a genius.
One of the fathers of the Modern movement/The International Style - and shares this honor with
Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius,
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Theo van Doesburg, and Philip Johnson.
DEPARTURE
May 11, 1976: Died in Helsinki