On the cloud map of Finland you’ll find Santa, a sauna, snow, reindeer and the Northern Lights. In fact, 75% of the country is covered by forests. It is home to more than 180,000 lakes and is home to people who love hiking, foraging, and being outdoors. Therefore, it is not surprising that a large part of tourism there is connected with nature. But there is another, different and rewarding way to explore Finland. As a design hub.
Design has always been a big part of Finnish culture. Some brands have been around for more than a century. Furniture legend Artek was founded in 1927, and Iittala began his 1881 glasswork shop. The very popular Marimekko is a relatively new manufacturer that started in 1951. More recently, in 2012, Finland’s capital Helsinki was named the World Design Capital of the year. In 2014, it was selected as a “City of Design” by UNESCO.
similar story
One of Artek’s founders is Alvar Aalto, who is the starting point for all discussions of Finnish design. Aalto had a huge influence on the evolution of modernism, creating everything from architecture to his famous furniture and glassware. You can learn about the breadth of his artistic activity by visiting Aalto’s studio in Helsinki, or the Aalto Museum in his hometown Jyväskylä, some 270 km away. Aalto, like many Finnish artists, drew inspiration from nature and indigenous culture. The undulating shapes of his famous works were inspired by savoy vasevariously attributed to ocean waves and Sami women’s skirts.
“Finnish design is often put in the same box as Scandinavian design, but that’s not true,” collector Kjösti Kakkunen said in a 2022 interview with art website Widewalls. Especially the unique relationship with nature. ”
In 2022, Kakkönen lent around 1,300 works to EMMA (Espoo Museum of Modern Art). I saw this collection when I visited Helsinki and Espoo in October 2023 on a trip organized by Visit Finland, which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2023, and Finnair. This collection was a great introduction to Finnish pottery and glass art. I was particularly fascinated by the work of Birger Kaipiainen. Beads Bird (Shakushi) (1960), and Kim Simonson’s enchanting reading sleeping moss girl (2022), from the sculptor’s “Kokejin” series. You can see how nature filters through most of these works in a light and playful way.
Amos Rex – Lasipalatsin Aukio (Glass Palace Square), Finland.Photo by Mika Hausman
This connection with nature is manifested in more modest designs. The first time I saw this mushroom was during a foraging expedition when my guide, Anna, handed me what looked like a wooden cup and poured me some “mushroom tea.” She drank from these cups again at Finland’s southernmost reindeer park in Nuuksio and bought some at a Finnish nature reserve. Center Haltia (after a spirited nature walk) This is a simple but attractive piece, made from a natural fiber composite with a flat handle that flares out from the cup like a ladle. Kupilka, a Kontiolahti-based brand, has been making these since 2003, offering a modern, outdoor-friendly alternative to the Sami traditional carved wooden kuksa cups.
For a more cutting-edge art experience, consider the Amos Rex Museum in Helsinki. It is largely underground, beneath his 1930s functionalist building called Lasipalatsi, now a cultural center containing cafes, shops and a cinema. The museum’s design is minimalist and striking, with vast, orderly rooms and halls, and strategically placed skylights. The current exhibition, “Ryoji Ikeda Exhibition” (on view until February), features five works by Japanese artists who started out as DJs and composers and then branched out into visual art. On screens ranging from TV-sized to gigantic, scientific data from NASA, the Human Genome Project, CERN, and other sources is interpreted as complex, shimmering mutation patterns with reverberating electronic scores. “Ikeda’s highly abstracted works are intellectually thought-provoking, but they also create a very physical experience for the viewer,” said U.S.-based curator Mika Yoshitake in an essay about the exhibition. writing.
Hanaholmen, a Swedish-Finnish cultural center on the outskirts of Helsinki, has it all: history, innovative design, and stunning sea views (after Sweden canceled Finland’s war debt in 1967). was established in commemoration). On a very windy day, we decided to take a tour of their art park. All the exhibits were displayed outdoors, on the lawn or under the trees, as if they had sprouted naturally. I was walking through the grounds in the morning, and as I passed a certain area, I was disconcerted by a faint sound coming from a source I couldn’t locate. It turned out to be his 2023 installation. mushroom, a bronze sculpture that emits sounds like those you might encounter in a meditative sci-fi movie. By happy coincidence, artist Gunji Holmström was there on tour and explained that the sounds were coming from biosensors that picked up the transmission of fungi, tree roots, and other underground organisms. Nature is literally speaking to us here.
Recently, I came across a page on Reddit that asked the following question: “Is there any truth to the adage, “Designed by Finns, Built by Swedes, Sold by Danes, Buyed by Norwegians?” Comments range from vilification of Iceland to the history of saunas to Western science fiction. moon zero two. But they pretty much agree on one thing. It’s a Finnish design.