Aalto Vase
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The Aalto Vase, also known as the Savoy Vase, is a world famous piece of glassware and an iconic piece of Finnish design created by Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino Marsio.
The vase was originally designed as an entry in a design competition for the Ahlström owned Karhula-Iittala glassworks factory in 1936. The design was inspired by the dress of a Sami woman. Called Eskimåkvinnans skinnbyxa (the Eskimo woman's leather breech), the design consisted of a series of crayon drawings on cardboard and scratch paper. Aalto created initial prototypes by blowing glass in the middle of a composition of wooden sticks stuck into the ground, letting the molten glass swell on only some sides and creating a wavy outline. The vase was originally manufactured by the glassworks factory using a wood mold which was slowly burned away.
This vase was later displayed for the 1937 World's Fair in Paris.
The Savoy Vase name is the result of the purchase of the vase, and rights to the design, by the Savoy Restaurant in Helsinki. Aalto never made money with the vase, because the design belonged to the factory for which the design competition entry was produced.
The vase has been manufactured in nearly a full spectrum of colours. The simplicity of the vase continues to be popular in the 21st century. Smaller versions of the vase, just as Aalto designed them with the seams visible and a slight curve at the base, are still produced by glasspressing at the Iittala glass factory in Iittala, Finland. Larger versions are made using Aalto's design, but without seams.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- Alvar Aalto: The Complete Catalogue of Architecture, Design and Art. Göran Schildt. New York: Rizzoli International, 1994.
