Alvar Aalto
ALVAR AALTO, A VASE. Savoy. Signed Karhula 22 IX 37.
Greenish glass, blown into a wooden mold. Height 14 cm.
Minor wear.
Provenance
This Savoy vase was made for a group of journalists visiting Karhula glass factory on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.
More information
Before the Paris Exposition of 1937, Alvar Aalto won a design competition organised by the Karhula glass factory with a sketch for a vase called "Eskimoerindens skinnbuxa". The first versions of this vase were blown from these sketches. The vases, often called "Aalto-vases" or "Paris Object" were enthusiastically received.
The model was blown in a wooden mould and were manufactured in clear glass as well as rio-brown, azure, green and smoke coloured glass for the Paris Exposition in 1937 and other exhibitions. The vase has come to be called the Savoy-vase due to its use in the Hotel Savoy Bistro in Helsinki since its opening in 1937. In 1949 the manufactuing of the vases was taken over by Iittala and it can be found in their product catalogues under the model number 3030.
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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