Harrisonmcinnes s3491670 task3

ALVAR AALTO

41 PAIMIO SCROLL CHAIR 1942

DESIGN & SOCIETY TASK

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Harrison Mcinnes_ 3491670_June 2015

Alvar Aalto Intro & About Aalto’s Furniture Designs Chair 41 CAID

1-2 3 4-5

Concept Chair Designs

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Concept Coffee Table Designs

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Concept Lamp Designs

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Project Reflection

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Bibliography

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Alvar Aalto

Intro

Alvar Aalto revolutionized and impacted the furniture design and architectural industries, through his technical and psychological complexities of experimenting with materials, bonding his natural surroundings with his buildings and furniture designs. The modernist movement influenced Aalto as his design style, which portrayed and had characteristic features of Nordic classicism, organic with a vast majority of his designs were highly considered modern Scandinavian. Aalto was raised during an era of proto-modernist such as Michael Thornet’s bentwood chair No.14 and Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s High armchair collection. Through the exposer of the designers and styles, Aalto manipulated and created new processes and styles within his furniture and architectural designs. Alvar Aalto was a creative architect whilst an innovative furniture designer by his fundmental principles and philosophies as this is clearly evident.

About Aalto had a childhood that later represented his personalities, morals and ethics. Aalto was born on the 3rd of February 1898 in Kuortane, Finland, as his parents were also raised and born in Finland his father ‘Johan’ was a land surveyor and his mother Selly was a ‘Postmistress’. When Aalto turned five years old, the family moved to Alajarui, then to Jyvaskyla in ventral Finland. Aalto attended school and completed his educated in 1916,after his secondary education he took drawing lessons from a local artist Jonas Heiska.

“God created paper for the purpose of drawing architecture on it. Everything else is, at least for me, an abuse of paper.”

Once Aalto finished secondary school he studied architecture at tertiary level at Helsinki University of technology in 1916. During his studies, the Finnish Civil war erupted which Aalto enlisted, he fought on the ‘White Army’ led by non-socialist, conservative-led Senate in the battles of Lankipohja and Tampere, which resulted in the ‘White Army’ victorious. Aalto graduated in 1921 then continued his military service in 1922 where he was promoted from reserve officer in training school to reserve second lieutenant in June 1923.

Once graduated, Aalto became a successful architect on an international scale whilst establishing architectural firm. Once Aalto established his name as an architect, he was educated within furniture design as he studied Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstatte designs whilst working under Eliel Saarinen.

Alvar later married his wife Aino as they worked and meet each other within Aalto’s architectural firm. On their honeymoon in Northern Italy, they both learnt and were influenced by vernacular architecture and Nordic classicism, as it was common for Scandinavian students to travel to Italy and study.

“Every one of my buildings begins with an Italian journey.”

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Aalto’s Furniture designs This highly influenced Alvar and Aino Career. The Couple established a furniture design company called ‘Artek” and to this present day is still operating. Alvar and Aino then had two children, a daughter Johanna (born 1925) and a son Hamilkar (born 1928). Aino then died at 52 years old in 1949 then Alvar then later remarried in 1952 to another Finnish architect Elissa Makiniemi who had been working in his office as an assistant. Alvar then later died on the 11th May 1976.

Chair 41

Aalto’s work really represents on how he was influenced by his architectural background. This chair is an armchair designed by Alvar Aalto at Artek. Paimio Scroll Chair 41 made in 1932, is a world famous design by its manufacturing, aesthetics and Nordic Classicism influence. Chair 41 is manufactured by laminating birch timber together to create the side arm supports, whilst the seat support its self is steam bend out of one piece of birch plywood. Chair 41 evokes Aalto’s basic principles of design, simplicity, use of materials and most importantly functionality. As you can see within the chair the seat is only attached at two points to the frame, this creates a spring effect and as a result benefits the design and users ergonomics.

This stool was designed by Alvar Aalto is an incredibly iconic design which later was a patented design due to it’s creative design and engineering. The Artek Alvar Stool 60 Collection are all three legged stool but in different colors, style and materials. This stool is the cheapest, simplest and is Aalto original design. The stool is a mixture of technology and aesthetics, the stool is constructed out of birch timber with a veneer sheet on top, which allows for natural gains to show. The legs of the stool are manufactured out of solid birch with cuts at the top acting a slits which allows for lamination in different shapes and it this case it is a ‘C’ bend. This is an ingenious solution without having to laminate the whole leg support. This stool is a simplistic design, which also follows Aalto’s fundamental principles that were used in his architecture as well as his previous furniture designs

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Aalto Stool

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751.8

Chair 41 CAID

60

500

8

Side

26.0

.5

1째

252

2.00째

49

.7

95

80.2 10

78.8 10

39.3

620.9 443.8

.7

316.5

54

70

40 222.5

49

.7

269.3

.7

45

.00

째

67

20

174.7

417.2

461.8

.7

7

44

7.10째

510.6

.7

606.1

49 49.

Back

65.8

Isometric 289.8

588.2 810.8

620

Alvar Aalto Armchair 41 Scale 1:5

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Chair Designs

Coffee Table Designs

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Lamp Designs

Project Reflection Investigation into Alvar Aalto for our projects was an interesting and amusing project as I have learnt new designs principles, morals and research skills. Alvar Aalto was an interesting designer to research into as he was a famous Architect whilst a creative furniture designer. It was easy to gather information on Aalto as he was so popular and internationally known. The project required me to investigate periods and movements within task 1, which gave me the fundamental knowledge of design periods, genres and styles.

Within task 2 we had to research a designer which was assigned to me, I received Alvar Aalto. Task 2 required me to analytically research Alvar Aalto’s life and design style. Task 3 was best in my option as we actually were allowed to approach the task in a design matter but conceptually sketching products relating to our designer’s products. Alvar had a lot of furniture products but had a consistent style which made it very easy more myself. Aalto also had a similar manufacturing method for all of his furniture products such as steam bending and laminating. I really enjoyed the tasks that I received and I believe that I had successfully completed them to the best of my ability.

Human life is a combination of tragedy and comedy. The shapes and designs that surround us are the music accompanying this tragedy and this comedy.

Alvar Aalto

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Bibliography Aalto, Alvar, and Karl Fleig. Alvar Aalto. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975. Print.

Aalto, Alvar, Peter Reed, and Kenneth Frampton. Alvar Aalto. New York: Museum of Modern Art,1998. Print.

Alvar, and Betty Jean Craige. Alvar. [Atlanta?]: Decorative Expressions, Inc., 2001. Print.

Wikipedia,. ‘Elissa Aalto’. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 May 2015.

Artek,. ‘Artek - Designers - Alvar Aalto’. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 May 2015.

Aalto.com,. ‘Artek Alvar Aalto Stool 60 - Three-Legged - Birch Veneer - The Making Of Aalto Stool 60’. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 May 2015.

Aalto, Alvar, and Alvar Aalto. ‘Alvar Aalto - Bio, Facts, Family | Famous Birthdays’. Famousbirthdays.com. N.p., 1898. Web. 17 May 2015.

Alvar Aalto. BrainyQuote.com, Xplore Inc, 2015. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ quotes/a/alvaraalto537616.html, accessed May 17, 2015.

Wikipedia,. ‘Alvar Aalto’. N.p., 2015. Web. 17 May 2015.

Alvar Aalto. BrainyQuote.com, Xplore Inc, 2015. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ quotes/a/alvaraalto600672.html, accessed May 17, 2015.

Alvar Aalto. BrainyQuote.com, Xplore Inc, 2015. http://www.brainyquote Alvar Aalto. BrainyQuote.com, Xplore Inc, 2015. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ quotes/a/alvaraalto537626.html, accessed May 17, 2015.

Aalto.com,. ‘Artek Alvar Aalto - Paimio Scroll Chair 41 - Artek Alvar Aalto - Lounge & Armchairs’. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 May 2015.

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