Alvar Aalto

The engineer, builder, and local businessman Ernst Sundh commissioned the construction of the combined commercial, office, and residential building Sundhcenter in Avesta between 1957 and 1961. Today, the building is known as Aaltohuset, as it was designed by Alvar Aalto. Sundh had become a co-owner and the main financier of the furniture company Svenska Artek (1945-1957), which produced Aalto's furniture at its factory in Hedemora, prompting the collaboration.

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.