Alvar Aalto
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a table, for Swedish Artek, Aalto Design Hedemora, Sweden 1946-56.
Birch and burled birch veneer, height 61 cm, diameter 75 cm.
Minor wear.
Provenance
The office of Ernst Sundh.
Literature
Sörbergs, Ann-Marie (ed.), Aalto och Artek i Hedemora, Hantverk och design i Hedemora, Hedemora, 2012, p. 171.
More information
ARTEK was active in Hedemora 1946-1956.
On April 12, 1946, Swedish AB Artek's factory
on Callerholmsgatan in Hedemora was inaugurated. Alvar Aalto's new factory was a collaboration with Ernst Sundh Byggnads AB and the aim was to secure the deliveries of Aalto's various furniture models to the rest of Europe and above all to the USA.
Ernst Sundh, who had close contacts with Aino and Alvar Aalto, quickly received large orders from the USA. Due to long payment credits, however, profitability became weak and Aalto decided to shut down production already after ten years. From the year 1957, the factory's operations shifted to producing kitchen furnishings.
Ingvar Norman was head of Ernst Sundh's drawing office and had many engineers under him. At most thirty people worked in the drawing office. Alvar Aalto designed furniture for the interior of Ernst Sundh's headquarters and for its design office. These were unique to the Hedemora factory and never went into series production. Some of the unique furniture for Artek in Hedemora is this round table.
At times there were great ambitions to let Alvar Aalto leave his mark on the towns of Avesta and Hedemora in southern Dalarna. However, the plans never came to fruition and apart from "The Blue House" in Avesta, there are few traces left today of the close collaboration between Aalto and Ernst Sundh Byggnads AB.
Designer
Alvar Aalto is one of Finland's most prominent architects and designers and one of Scandinavia's biggest proponents of modern architecture and design. Several of the furniture and vases he designed are today considered iconic design classics, including the Savoy vases, the Beehive lamp, and Armchair, model '31'.Alvar Aalto is the most internationally famous Finnish architect and designer. Aalto was a great ambassador for Finnish design at a time when the Finnish people were thinking about how to present themselves to the rest of the world. He gave equal weight to form and function, and was inspired by the Finnish landscape. Aalto is one of the most important representatives of modern architecture and has created its own architecture direction, whose aesthetic effect is based on careful planning of the buildings in relation to the environment, a human dimension and good sense of material.
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