20th Century Furniture Designers and Architects
Alvar Aalto - Finnish Architect
His design concepts were organic and using the human form. His buildings and chairs were first prompted by the user. The seats and handles were moulded to the human form.
Of all architectural furniture, his is the closest to humanity.
Alvar Aalto designed laminated timber furniture.
He saw that tubular steel lacked human qualities. He used local Birchwood as a substitution for steel tubing. He concluded that standardisation and mass production could not be sustained in Finland's small economy.
His chairs were the result of great study and investigation into, posture, laminated wood, aesthetic considerations and efficient mechanical methods of mass production.
His Paimio Chair, 1930, is said to have been influenced by the curved contours of the Finnish lakes, it is one of the most elegant modern chairs.
