(smow)offline: Alvar Aalto at Bauhaus Weimar

Alvar Aalto

While we are enjoying ourselves at the #VitraHaus preview in Weil am Rhein, the good people of Weimar will be getting their first chance to view the exhibition “In Sand gezeichnet – Entwürfe von Alvar Aalto” (Drawn in Sand – Sketches by Alvar Aalto) at the Bauhaus Universität in Weimar. Featuring over 100  sketches and 18 models of never realised projects, the exhibition promises an interesting insight into the process behind the design of the man who led Scandinavian architecture into modernism and so helped lay the foundation for the tradition of high quality Scandinavian design.

And it is of course fitting that the exhibition should begin its German Tour in Weimar, for without “Bauhaus” it is doubtful if Aalto would have been able to achieve what he did. Not only did the acceptance for much of Aalto’s work stem from the success of the Bauhaus movement, but also friendships with key Bauhaus players, including László Moholy-Nagy and Mies van der Rohe shaped and influenced Aaltos work.

In addition to designing buildings, and re-designing architectural thinking, Alvar Aalto also created some wonderful furniture pieces: his armchair 400 or Lounge Chair 43 still count a some of the most important examples of modernist Finnish design. So convinced was Aalto in the role of the “modern culture of habitation” that in 1935, together with his wife Aino and Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl, he founded the company Artek as a vehicle through which to produce and sell his furniture. And to this day Artek posses the sole rights to Alvar Aalto’s furniture.

The exhibition “In Sand gezeichnet – Entwürfe von Alvar Aalto” runs in Weimar until March 21st, before heading of to Ulm, Wolfsburg and Hamburg.

Alvar Aalto Armchair 400 from Artek