Aino Aalto

Aino Maria Marsio-Aalto (born Aino Maria Mandelin; 25 January 1894 – 13 January 1949) was a Finnish architect and a pioneer of Scandinavian design. She is known as the design partner of architect Alvar Aalto, with whom she worked for 25 years, and as a co-founder with him, Maire Gullichsen, and Nils-Gustav Hahl of the design company Artek, collaborating on many its most well-known designs. As Artek's first artistic director, her creative output spanned textiles, lamps, glassware, and buildings. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, and MoMA has included her work in nine exhibitions, the first of which was Aalto: Architecture and Furniture in 1938. Other major exhibitions were at the Barbican Art Gallery in London and Chelsea Space in London. Aino Aalto has been exhibited with Pablo Picasso.

Biography Aino Mandelin was born in Helsinki. Her family lived in a co-operative apartment building in Helsinki where she was introduced to neighboring master carpenters and joiners whom she later apprenticed for. Aino completed her school education in 1913 at the Helsingin Suomalainen Tyttökoulu (Helsinki Finnish Girls' School). She began studies in architecture that same year at the Institute of Technology, Helsinki, and qualified as an architect in 1920. Aino graduated with a handful of other female architects including Salme Setälä. She also met her future husband, Alvar Aalto, when they were both students. Aino was the head designer of Artek and later became the managing director. In the early years of Artek, furniture designs and standards were created and revised by Aino and of the hundreds of designs, only a few are by Alvar Aalto. She also oversaw commissions for interiors, lighting, screens, textiles and other household objects. Under Aino's leadership Artek completed more than eighty interiors.

Aino Aalto also designed several glassware objects for the Finnish company Iittala, who made household objects. Her most famous glass design is still on sale, and slightly different copies made by companies such as IKEA are widespread. Aalto's "Bölgeblick" design serves as inspiration for a line of dinnerware produced by Iittala. She also collaborated with her husband on the design of the celebrated Savoy Vase in 1936.

Aalto worked in the Artek office until 1949, when she died of cancer. Aino set the tone for the Artek's creative and commercial approach which is still intact.

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