Alvar Aalto
b.1898-1976, Finland
b.1898-1976, Finland
BIOGRAPHY
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was an architect and designer whose work includes furniture, textiles, glassware, architecture as well as sculpture and painting. The long span of his career is reflected in the styles of his work, such as the references of Nordic Classicism in his early work, the rationalism of International Style during the 1930s and a more organic modernism from the 1940s onwards.
Alvar Aalto was a genius of design, being both an industrial designer and planner; and his hugely influential mark lives on today through established silhouettes and structures. He was a proponent and pioneer of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) in which objects and their environment are designed to be fluid and relative to each other. This incisive consideration for relationship is seen throughout his work as a continual dialogue of dichotomies between man and nature, object and environment, spirit and matter.
Alvar Aalto was a genius of design, being both an industrial designer and planner; and his hugely influential mark lives on today through established silhouettes and structures. He was a proponent and pioneer of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) in which objects and their environment are designed to be fluid and relative to each other. This incisive consideration for relationship is seen throughout his work as a continual dialogue of dichotomies between man and nature, object and environment, spirit and matter.
SELECTED WORKS
— Available Works
