Artek and the Aaltos: Creating a Modern World

The newly revised and expanded study of the world-renowned Finnish design company Artek

Best known for the production of Aalto’s famous bentwood furniture, Artek was a multifaceted design company that created numerous innovative products. This extensively illustrated book is based on an extraordinary range of newly discovered archival materials that shed new light on Artek’s history. It looks at the close working relationship between Alvar Aalto and Aino Marsio-Aalto, and the critical roles they played in its establishment and development internationally. Reissued in hard cover and with an enlarged trim size, greater prominence is given to the more than 500 drawings and photographs, including a selection never-before published. The addition of a chronology that traces the parallel history of Artek and the Aalto office offers an unprecedented understanding of the many projects they created together. The original text received the 2018 Philip Johnson Award for outstanding exhibition catalogue by the Society of Architectural Historians.

Distributed for the Bard Graduate Center and the Alvar Aalto Foundation

Nina Stritzler-Levine is gallery director and director of gallery publications of Bard Graduate Center in New York.