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Eero Aarnio

The Finnish designer Eero Aarnio was born on July 21, 1932 in Helsinki. From 1954 to 1957 Aarnio studied at the Institute of Industrial Arts in Helsinki, before subsequently establishing his own design office in the early 60s, and where he continues to work as an industrial and interior designer with a particular focus on furniture design. An early focus of Eero Aarnio's work was experimentation with fibre glass during his career; two particular successes being the 1963 Ball Chair, also known as Globe Chair, and the Bubble Chair from 1968. Both works helped establish Eero Aarnio's reputation and for all the Ball Chair became a cult object of the 1960s, featuring in numerous science fiction movies and magazine photo shoots - even making it into a fashion show by the Grand Diva of Swinging Sixties London, the fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. Similarly the transparent Bubble Chair, hanging as it does like a bubble floating on the wind became a celebrated symbol of the spirit of freedom which arose in the 1960s and thus was an object which featured in numerous photo shoots and graced many magazine covers. And continues to. Self confident icons of modern furniture design, Eero Aarnio furniture is sold by manufacturers such as Artek and Adelta and thanks to their individuality and nonconformity is just as suitable for adding a new accent to a domestic space as a futuristic highlight in commercial settings. More recently Eero Aarnio contributed to the children's furniture series Me too from Italian manufacturer Magis with the dog Puppy: a colourful mix of baby chair and playmate, Puppy delights young and old alike. Eero Aarnio's furniture designs are in addition exhibited in many important museums, such as MoMA in New York, in London's Victoria and Albert Museum and the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein.

Eero Aarnio


Pingy from Magis


More about 'Eero Aarnio' in our blog

5 New Design Exhibitions for April 2016

...Super Meta Maxi opens at Museum Kunstpalast, Ehrenhof 4-5, 40479 Düsseldorf on Saturday April 23rd and runs until Sunday August 14th * MoMA Press Release, March 18th 1960 (pdf) "Eero Aarnio" at the Designmuseo Helsinki, Finland With his Ball Chair and Bubble Chair the Finnish designer Eero Aarnio not only gave the 1960s spirit of revolution, freedom and unlimited opportunity a physical form, but he also created new genres of furniture and helped forge new understandings of materials and production processes... More recently creations such as Puppy for Magis or the Rocket Stool for Artek have brought Eero Aarnio's creativity into a new generation, and in context of the wooden Rocket Stool, a new material...

(smow)offline: The art of faking it. Adelta helps customers spot copies

...Finish designer Eero Aarnio is not only one of the true pioneers of furniture design; but also a designer whose work is regularly copied... Eero Aarnio's work is available exclusively from Adelta and on the Adelta website there is a good humoured guide to what to watch out for when inspecting a piece of, allegedly, Eero Aarnio furniture...

new at smow: Ball Chair by Eero Aarnio

...So, or at least similar, is how we like to imagine Eero Aarnio developing probably his most defining design: the Ball Chair Helsinki...


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