Review of Aino and Alvar Aalto’s individual furniture design in 1930’s

The exhibition year at the Alvar Aalto Museum comes to an end by focusing on the museum’s own collection. out with the 3-piece suite! presents selected designs that were already modern 75 years ago and are still timeless today.

Architects Aino and Alvar Aalto were pioneers in the field of design, as well as architecture. They discarded the idea of complete suites of heavy furniture for the home. Instead, they designed individual, uncomplicated pieces of furniture that could easily be combined with each other, or with furniture produced by other designers.

The Aaltos’ interior design philosophy was channelled into Artek, founded in 1935, which soon began publishing product catalogues. The 1939 catalogue has been chosen as the basis for this exhibition.

The task of the Alvar Aalto Museum is to record, study and pass on information about the lifetime’s work of Alvar Aalto. The Museum collection is a national treasure chest of modern design. It includes furniture, light fittings, glassware, examples of bent wood, jewellery, fabrics and other design products. The largest category is furniture, with over 800 objects. The collection is important on an international scale, too; in 2014 alone, objects have been loaned for exhibition in various countries including Belgium, England and Germany.

Now for a change, the out with the 3-piece suite! exhibition makes the collection available to the public in its home town, Jyväskylä. Admission to the exhibition is free to anyone with a Central Finland library card.

On the opening day, November 21, you can take a look at the exhibition between the hours of 11.00 and 16.00 in the company of well-informed guides.

out with the 3-piece suite! aalto furniture in 1939
In the Gallery at the Alvar Aalto Museum
21.11.2014–18.1.2015

Alvar Aallon katu 7, 40600 Jyväskylä, Finland
open Tue–Sun 11-18
tel +358 14 266 7113
www.alvaraalto.fi