Alvar Aalto

Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was a Finnish architect and designer, as well as a sculptor and painter. His work includes architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware. Aaltos early career runs in parallel with the rapid economic growth and industrialization of Finland during the first half of the twentieth century and many of his clients were industrialists among these were the AhlstrmGullichsen family. The span of his career, from the 1920s to the 1970s, is reflected in the styles of his work, ranging from Nordic Classicism of the early work, to a rational International Style Modernism during the 1930s to a more organic modernist style from the 1940s onwards. His furniture designs were considered Scandinavian Modern. What is typical for his entire career, however, is a concern for design as a Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art whereby he together with his first wife Aino Aalto would design not just the building, but give special treatments to the interior surfaces and design furnitur

Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was born in Kuortane, Finland. His father, Johan Henrik Aalto, was a Finnishspeaking landsurveyor and his mother, Selly Matilda was a Swedishspeaking postmistress. When Aalto wasyears old, the family moved to Alajrvi, and from there to Jyvskyl in Central Finland. Aalto studied at the Jyvskyl Lyceum school, where he completed his basic education in 1916 and took drawing lessons from a local artist named Jonas Heiska. In 1916 he then enrolled to study architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology. His studies were interrupted by the Finnish Civil War, which he fought in. He fought on the side of the White Army and fought at the Battle of Lnkipohja and the Battle of Tampere. He built his first piece of architecture while still a student, a house for his parents, at Alajrvi. Afterwards, he continued his education, graduating in 1921. In the summer of 1922 he began his official military service, finishing at the Hamina reserve officer training school, an

Source: Wikipedia