Aino Aalto

Finland (1894-1949)

Aino Aalto was a designer and architect and one of Artek’s founding figures. Upon graduation on January 20^th 1920, Aino Marsio (her family name) started her professional career for architect Oiva Kallio in Helsinki. In 1924 Aino went to work for Alvar Aalto’s office. After working together for some six months, they were married. Aino and Alvar came to work a great deal together and their working methods were marked by absolute equality.

As a designer, she is primarily known for her work in glass and the design of interiors, but also as a furniture designer. Aino Aalto life's work, however, ranged from architecture to photography and various areas of applied art and design. Aino Aalto designed among other things glassware objects, ceramics, lightings, printed fabrics as well as unique pieces of textile.

She came to play an important part at Artek, Aino was always closely involved in the company’s development and during the years 1941-1949 she was Managing Director of Artek. In many ways it was Aino Aalto who laid the foundation for the aesthetics of Artek, which combined the modernist idea of clear form with simple surface ornamentation based on the structure of materials.