MAXIMAL I MINIMAL 8th International Alvar Aalto Design Seminar 2016

MAXIMAL MINIMAL 8 th International Alvar Aalto Design Seminar 2016 Seminar 27.–28.8.2016 Jyväskylä, Finland Exhibition 27.8.–2.10.2016 Museum of Central Finland w w w. a l v a r aalt od esign semin ar.f i

MAXIMAL|MINIMAL 8th International Alvar Aalto Design Seminar 2016

The 8th International Alvar Aalto Design Seminar 2016 is organized in Jyväskylä, Finland. The chair of the event is professor, interior architect Simo Heikkilä. The theme of the seminar MAXIMAL I MINIMAL, brings into the stage the topical phenomenon from arts & crafts to the lighting of cities and ecologically sustainable manufacturing.

The seminar consists of the seminar event on 27-28 August 2016 and the exhibition in the Museum of Central Finland from 27 August to 2 Octuber 2016. The exhibition is compiled of the prototype designs by the speakers of the seminar, manufactured by arts & crafts colleges in Finland.

PROGRAMME SATURDAY 27.8.2016 10:30–12:30 Registration 12:30–13:00 Opening of the seminar 13:00–14:00 Richard Hutten 14:00–15:00 Päivi Meuronen & Aimo Katajamäki 15:00–15:30 Coffee break 15:30–16:30 Fien Muller & Hannes Van Severen 16:30–17:30 Max Lamb 19:00–20:30 Reception and dinner,

Alvar Aalto Museum 20:30–22:00 Opening of the exhibition,

Museum of Central Finland 22:00-23:00 Guerrilla Lighting show outside

the museum buildings

SUNDAY 28.8.2016 10:00–11:00 Jonas Bohlin 11:00–12:00 Jouko Järvisalo 12:00–13:00 Lunch break 13:00–13:30 Johanna Vuorio 13:30–14:00 Hans Lensvelt 14:00–15:00 Cecilie Manz 15:00–15:30 Coffee break 15:30–16:30 Kaoru Mende 16:30–17:00 Closing of the seminar

The organizers reserve the right to alter the programme www.alvaraaltodesignseminar.fi

The series of International Alvar Aalto Design Seminars began in Jyväskylä in 1995. The goal was to bring architects and designers together to discuss interior design and industrial design, in the spirit of the design philosophy of the architect Alvar Aalto.

Right from the start, the event was also to have a pedagogical objective — to create an opportunity for experienced international masters to meet the younger generation of Finnish designers and students, within the context of exhibition projects, and in line with the tradition of master craftsman and apprentices.

Over the years, the considerable personal international networks of the Alvar Aalto Museum and those chairing the seminars have made it possible to bring timely, highly interesting guest speakers to Jyväskylä. The city’s many Alvar Aalto buildings have provided speakers and seminar participants with interesting experiences, as well, of course, as the premises for the seminar itself.

The triennial seminars have addressed such themes as the interaction between architecture and design in buildings, the role of empty space in buildings and objects, the relationship between surfaces and the content of design and art, and the impact of the choices that designers make in their everyday work on the final result, as well as the environment.

Our theme this year, MAXIMAL I MINIMAL, leaves room for the speakers to manoeuvre around those two peculiar concepts, which

provoke a variety of emotions. I suppose that all designers, in their thoughts and actions, find these two concepts within themselves, and must continually face up to making responsible choices throughout the design process. Will I succeed in designing functional, long-lasting items, so that the objects that I design or make are environmentally friendly and, if I succeed, will I make the people who use these items happy?

We have asked the speakers to provide sketches for a vertical piece of furniture suitable for storing a favourite book. The resulting unique items, produced in collaboration between the students of Finland’s arts and crafts institutes and our speakers, are on display in an exhibition that is being opened in conjunction with the seminar at the Museum of Central Finland.

On display on the same premises are the fine posters and other printed material designed by Aimo Katajamäki for previous Seminars.

With these words, I welcome our speakers and the audience, and wish you a rewarding and intensive seminar.

Simo Heikkilä Chairman

EX H I BI T ION 27.8.-2.10.2016 MUSEUM OF CENTRAL FINLAND The Alvar Aalto international Design Seminars were founded as a discussion forum to continue the spirit of the functional and ecological design principles represented by Alvar Aalto.

The first Design for Architecture Seminar was held in 1995.

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M AX IM AL | M I NIM AL

International Alvar Aalto Design Seminar 2016 This year the Alvar Aalto Design Seminar includes a fascinating exhibition in which young future talents play the main role. Seminar speakers were joined with students from Finnish arts and crafts institutes to work from designs by the lecturers to create pieces of vertical furniture suitable for storing books. The unique objects resulting from this collaboration are being exhibited at the Museum of Central Finland to coincide with the seminar.

DESIGNERS:

2004

Jonas Bohlin (Sweden) Simo Heikkilä (Finland) Richard Hutten (Netherlands) Jouko Järvisalo (Finland) Aimo Katajamäki (Finland) Esa Laaksonen (Finland) Max Lamb (UK) Cecilie Manz (Denmark) Kaoru Mende (Japan) Päivi Meuronen (Finland) Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen (Belgium) Johanna Vuorio (Finland) ARTS & CRAFTS INSTITUTES: Omnia Vocational College Ikaalinen College of Crafts and Design Ingman College of Crafts and Design Jyväskylä College Salpaus Further Education North Karelia College Joensuu Technology and Culture

2016

“In daily work the designer has to make decisions between two possibilities: Is this a task for something minimal, or an attractive place for maximal?”

Interior architect and designer Simo Heikkilä graduated in Helsinki 1967 and started his career in Marimekko designing shop interiors and exhibitions.

After setting up his own studio 1971 Heikkilä continued his work with interiors, exhibitions, furniture and small objects.

Simo Heikkilä has received numerous design awards, last Kaj Franck Design Prize 2011.

As a teacher he worked as the director of Aalto University’s Wood studio and later also as the professor of Furniture Design in the same University.

He has guided young designers towards an ecological and practical use of material and local production.

Simo Heikkilä was the founder of the first Alvar Aalto Design Seminar in 1995 and has continued developing it together with his wide international network of designers. www.periferiadesign.fi

Cane divan for Lensvelt, 2015

photo Chikako Harada

SIMO HEIKKILÄ

RIC H A R D H UT T E N “Traditionally design is about solving a problem. I don’t solve problems; I create possibilities” Rotterdam based Richard Hutten is well known for his conceptual and playful designs. A true innovator, he has established himself as one of the leading international figures in his field, continuously pushing the boundaries of design.

Born in The Netherlands in 1967, Richard Hutten graduated of the Design Academy in Eindhoven in 1991, the same year he started his own design studio. With a team of experts

he is working across furniture design and interior design, many of his products have become successful design icons and are represented in renowned museum all over the world.

Playfulness is an important aspect of Richard Hutten work. Referring to ‘Homo Ludens or “Playing Man” by the Dutch historian and cultural theorist Professor Johan Huizinga, Richard Hutten’s designs are aiming to contribute to the importance of play as culture. Therefore his designs are not only beautiful, but also optimistic and fun.

photo Liselore Chevalier

www.richardhutten.com

photo Mika Huisman

PÄI V I M E UR O N E N & A IM O K A T A J A M Ä K I “Crisscross - from coin to concept, from sketch to concrete”

photo Jeffune Gimpel

Interior architect Päivi Meuronen and graphic designer, sculptor Aimo Katajamäki are distinguished designers in their own field, but they also operate as a working couple. Their own independent designer personalities can be found in their co-operation, but also in the power and joy of doing things together. Their ideas are crisscrossing through their work.

Meuronen’s working as a part of the architect design team in JKMM Architects has produced a number of comprehensive works, where the architecture and interior design form a seamless wholeness.

In many experiential interiors Meuronen has created, Katajamäki’s graphic art is playing an important role. Meuronen & Katajamäki are operating extensively across the architecture, design and art field – in minimal and maximal scales.

Meuronen and Katajamäki have received many national and international awards.

2013 they were awarded together with the State Prize for Design. www.aimonomia.fi

www.jkmm.fi

photo Mirjam Devriendt

FIEN MULLER & HANNES VAN SEVEREN ”With both Fien and Hannes being artists, it’s natural that the collection sits somewhere between design and art – it’s obviously ”furniture” but the emphasis is not completely concentrated on function and suggests different ways of living and use of space…an uncanny twist on universal forms.”

Photographer Fien Muller (1978) and sculptor Hannes van Severen (1979) made their debut as a design duo at Gallery Valerie Traan in Antwerp 2011. What might at first have been construed as a pleasant escapade of two visuals artists to a border zone between art and design, soon got another scope. Their joint furniture project was almost immediately picked up internationally and they were selected as international guests at the Interieur Design Biennale in Kortrijk in 2012. They were nominated for prestigious international awards,

including the Design of the Year 2013 award at the Design Museum in London and the Wallpaper Magazine Designer of the Year award 2014. Their furniture sculptures have travelled to leading galleries and museums in London, Berlin, Milan, Copenhagen and will soon be shown in Paris and New York. www.mullervanseveren.be

photo Stéphane Grand

M A X LAM B “The concept of design as exercise; breaking down the practice of design into its essential components such as material, process, function and then recombine them to give each element an intrinsically important role in the realization, function and finally the aesthetic of a product. Minimal input, maximal output.”

A native of Cornwall, Max has been tinkering with objects and engaging with the physical

landscape since he was a small boy; a curiosity that led to an MA in Design Products at the Royal College of Art and subsequently the foundation of his workshop-based design practice. Max explores both traditional and unconventional materials and processes, blending experimentation and rationale to create furniture and products that are both honest and intelligible.

Max teaches Design Products at the Royal College of Art and runs regular design workshops for companies and institutions around the world. www.maxlamb.org

“ I am a gardener, longing to the sea” Being a designer with an artistical approach to his work, Jonas Bohlin always crosses the borderlines — but without losing the connections.

The connections to architecture, to functions, to life itself.

Since the beginning of his career the mixture of emotion and common sense in design has been the very means for his success. As much as you never can separate a design´s form from its function, you¹re not able to distinguish its emotional contents from its value.

Jonas Bohlin´s works range from furniture, light fittings, glass and textiles, to art objects and installations. It also comprises huge projects, like the creation of a new design education or an eighteen months long happening, comprising the build of a traditional, Swedish boat for fuor rowers, and climaxing in a three month rowing session on the channels of Europe, from Stockholm to Paris. That project was called LIV, the Swedish word for life (also Latin for 54 ­the total number of rowers!).

photo Jonas Sällberg

www.jonasbohlin.com

photo Jonas Sällberg

JONAS BOHLIN

photo Rauno Träskelin

JOU K O JÄ R V I S A L O “The conceptual content of art is close to the concept of skill, which merges with emotion in the minds of those who experience it.”

Jouko Järvisalo is a furniture designer working in his own studio in Helsinki. He has designed furniture since 1979 for several manufacturers including Asko, Artek, Avarte, Inno and Mobel.

He became the head designer and artistic director at Mobel in 2000. Jouko Järvisalo has participated in numerous exhibitions both in Finland and abroad, and has received several Finnish and international prizes, including the Finnish Association of Interior Architects (SIO) prize of 1983 and 1994, the State Design Prize of 1991, the Pro Finnish Design Prize of 1999, and the Good Design Award of the Chicago Athenaeum in 2004 and 2006.

Jouko Järvisalo`s works are in the permanent collections of Design Museum in Helsinki, the Chicago Athenaeum, the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam and the Reykjavik Design Museum.

Alongside his own design work, Jouko Järvisalo has worked as a teacher of furniture design at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki and as Professor of Furniture Design at Aalto University in Helsinki.

LEC, Mobel Oy, photo Rauno Träskelin

www.mobel.fi

JOHANNA VUORIO “Good design reaches every phase of the creation process and thus produces sincere, timeless objects that are cherished in use because of the lasting, solid story behind them.”

Johanna Vuorio is an entrepreneur and CEO of Nikari. Her studies included various subjects from international design business management and wood technology to classical singing in Finland, Great Britain, Italy and United States. Vuorio graduated from Helsinki University of Technology (currently Aalto) in 1999 and collaborated with professor Yrjö Kukkapuro at a furniture business Avarte for the next decade.

She got a possibility to become a part of the story of the Finnish wood design company Nikari in 2009, when she was appointed the managing director. In 2010 Vuorio became the major shareholder of Nikari, following the founder, award-winning master cabinet maker Kari Virtanen.

Today Vuorio’s idea is to cherish the strong Nikari philosophy of combining high quality craftsmanship with contemporary design and sustainable values – something that, in her own words “can be an inspiring example of an ultramodern, meaningful furniture production”.

Vuorio works for keeping the local craftsmanship skills alive by providing traineeship possibilities for young cabinet maker apprentices at the company workshop. Nikari is collaborating with international designers such as Jasper Morrison, Louise Campbell, Alfredo Häberli, Harri Koskinen and Nao Tamura, publishing new products on a frequent basis. The studio– workshop of the business is running on 100% sustainable energy from the local hydro power plant in Fiskars.

www.nikari.fi

HAN S L E N S V E L T “The beauty is through my work - I’m bridging the creative world and the business world.”

The creation of interior solutions with something innovative and with an aesthetic quality, beautiful and perfectly made.

In 1985, after studying Business Administration from the HTS in Tilburg, I was in doubt what I should do. Start studying at the Technical University, to become a builder or an architect, or to join the family business. The company won!

My personal ambition is not managing a company: Discussions with banks, accountants, lawyers, consultants, etc.

Not my thing. I am a true entrepreneur. I love to start new businesses. I have started many.

The bar is still sky high. 16 hours a day. With humor. With pleasure. At least ten decisions a day!!!

The beauty is through my work. I’m bridging the creative world and the business world.

Great that I can realize the ideas of designers.

Great that I can generate a source of income in the form of royalties for the designers and so they can develop themselves and that they can continue their important work. Great that I can make people happy and proud with my products. We create the most amazing products.

Fantastic that I can offer my clients solutions for their needs and problems.

My personal idea is to make beautiful things.

A broad vision; To pile firewood, making brochures, trade shows, then a new product, a product launch, the Milan fair, the cultivation of my farm or my apartment.

It must always be beautiful to me. I enjoy developing new products that are ahead of their time. It should be beautiful, innovative, and it should work perfectly! Something un-Dutch.

Universal.

I have nothing to do with reading books, or magazines, sports, television, cabaret, theater, cinema, holidays, music concerts, etc. I love other people. Love to talk, eat and drink with them.

The company Lensvelt: Lensvelt is a family business.

Founded by my father in 1962. In 1990 I took over the shares. My parents moved immediately after to Bonaire in the West Indies. And I could do my thing. The company was as an extremely fertile field. My father had done a good job. Only seeding was necessary to enlarge the success of it. www.lensvelt.nl

CE C I L I E MA N Z “I view all my works as fragments of one big, ongoing story where the projects are often linked or related in terms of their idea, materials and aesthetics, across time and function.”

After graduation from the design school Danmarks Designskole in Copenhagen in 1997 with additional studies at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, Cecilie Manz founded her own studio in Copenhagen in 1998. Here, Cecilie Manz designs furniture, glass, lamps and related products, mainly for the home.

In addition to her work with industrial products, her experimental prototypes and more sculptural one-offs make up an important part of her work and approach: “I view all my works as fragments of one big, ongoing story where the projects are often linked or related in terms of their idea, materials and aesthetics, across time and function.”

“Some objects remain experiments or sculpted ideas, others are made more concrete and turn into functional tools.”

PLURALIS Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen

“The task or project itself often holds the key to inspiration; ideas don’t come from waiting but from leg-work, drafting and trials. My work goes from the inside out, and a project has to possess a sound, strong and relevant idea or functional justification before I address the actual physical design. My work has always revolved around simplicity, the process of working toward a pure, aesthetic and narrative object.” In any case, clear ideas and tight aesthetics are essential elements. www.ceciliemanz.com

KAO RU M E N DE “We can be sure that architectural lighting design after 2015 will continue to interact with social trends and enter new phases of development.”

Lighting Planners Associates, Toshio Kaneko

Kaoru Mende was born in Tokyo in 1950, earned a bachelors and masters degree from Tokyo University of Art in the field of industrial and environmental design. In 1990, he founded Lighting Planners Associates Inc. The scope of his design and planning activities ranges widely from residential and architectural lighting design to urban and environmental lighting. Mende is also the

Gifu Media Cosmos

acting chief of the “Lighting Detectives”, a citizens’ group that specializes in the study of the culture of lighting.

Mende has been involved in such superb projects as Tokyo International Forum, JR Kyoto Station, Sendai Mediatheque, Roppongi Hills, National Museum of Singapore, Singapore City Center Lighting Master Plan, Alila Villas Uluwatu, Aman New Delhi, Gardens by the Bay and Façade lighting for Tokyo station.

Mende is a visiting professor at Musashino Art University and a part-time lecturer at Tokyo University, Tokyo University of Art, and other institutions. www.lighting.co.jp

E SA L A AK SON EN “Maximizing minimum - developing a whole out of details.”

Esa Laaksonen is a Finnish architect, who was appointed as the first director of the Alvar Aalto Academy in 1999. He was the editor-in-chief of the Finnish Architecture magazine, Arkkitehti, in 1996-1999 and the Chief of exhibitions at the Museum of Finnish Architecture in 1999. He runs the architecture office friman.laaksonen architects in Helsinki together with the architect Kimmo Friman. At the moment he is on leave from the Academy due to a three-year artist grant from the Finnish state. www.fl-a.fi

Estonian National Museum, Open International Architecture Competition. “kivi kive sisu”, Purchase Prize (Kimmo Friman, Esa Laaksonen, Marko Pulli).

photo Arp Karm.

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MAXIMAL|MINIMAL

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