An Aggressive Search for Beauty : Finnish Designs Rooted in Function, National Pride

Although it is tucked away in an isolated, Arctic corner of Europe and has fewer than 5 million people, Finland is responsible for a quality of design that is admired throughout the world.

Finnish artists occupy the entire spectrum of modern design--from heavy industry to fashion, from sculpted glass to icebreakers.

A stroll through the center of Helsinki, the Finnish capital, takes one past design shops--Marimekko, Artek, Arabia, a dozen others--filled with products reflecting imagination and superior quality; they are functional yet colorful, tasteful and elegant.

And profitable. Finnish firms estimate that exports of such products to the United States alone amount to about $15 million a year.

The excellence of Finnish design has caused many people to wonder how such a relatively remote country could turn out such an abundance of attractive things.

Close to Nature

“I think our style has something to do with living close to nature in the countryside,” Jarno Peltonen, director of the Museum of Applied Arts here, suggested in an interview. “We haven’t been urbanized for very long. I think this has given our designers a simple sense of form, a purity, a sense of the structure of materials.

“Then, too, we have been using wood and glass for hundreds of years. We are on the northern border between East and West, but we have been open to new ideas from the outside.”

Finnish glass, Peltonen said, came into its own at the Nordic Exhibition in Stockholm in 1946. Gunnel Nymans’ work was highly praised at the exhibition and led her to design for Iittala, the superb local glassworks.

Few Raw Materials

Juha Valtanen, head of the Design Forum, which shows off Finnish products, told a reporter: “When you are from a relatively poor country like ours, you have to be practical with the few raw materials available. Before the war, nearly everything was made at home, so everyone learned to use their hands, making their own textiles, rugs, furniture.

“There was a lack of many materials, but there was also an atmosphere of beauty in the country, so somehow a renaissance sprang up after the war. After the deprivation, we became almost aggressive in the search for beauty. We were lucky, too, that we had some very good Finnish designers like Alvar Aalto and Kaj Franck to look up to.”

Alvar Aalto, an architect who specialized in modern buildings and furniture, was the towering figure of modern Finnish design. His buildings in Finland were finished in impeccable taste, with a deep concern for other buildings and the surroundings.

In Helsinki he designed buildings on either side of a red brick structure done by Eliel Saarinen and together the three structures form a handsome, tightly knit ensemble.

Around the corner, Aalto created the Academic Bookstore, one of the most attractive browsers’ oases in Europe.

But Aalto also pioneered the bending, twisting and laminating of Finland’s native birchwood into modern furniture. An example: the tea trolley in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

To market his products, Aalto formed the Artek company, which still displays many of his works: the “Savoy” glass vase, the bentwood chairs and the three-legged stacking stools.

Design Policy

“Aalto’s furniture was the reason for our existence,” said Ben af Schulten, Artek’s chief designer. “I think we were the first Finnish store with a design policy based on the idea of functionalism.

“Aalto pioneered the use of bentwood birch but also the concept of components you could tie in with each other. It was a very practical idea, not only for looks, but for production and storage. That’s why, even 50 years later, the pieces are so useful and popular.

“So we have our own things designed on the basis of the Alvar Aalto model, but other pieces have been made for us by young Finnish designers. The idea is to keep the best that we have produced, but to make continuous use of new things. For many of our people, Artek things have become a life style.”

Another important figure in Finnish design is Marimekko, whose distinctive printed fabrics have long been popular from Scandinavia to California. Internationally, Marimekko is probably the best-known Finnish trademark.

The Marimekko shops and factory in Helsinki are a riot of brilliant colors and patterns, the work of some of Finland’s leading print designers.

Marimekko, which means “Mary’s dress,” was created by Armi Ratia, who founded the company on a shoestring in 1951. The company turned out brightly printed fabrics. Fabrics, transformed into garments and interior coverings, are still at the heart of Marimekko’s success.

Main Specialty

“We caught on with our printed fabrics, and now our main specialty is ladies’ ready-to-wear,” said Riitta Koljonen, a company official at the busy factory. “We have staff designers and we use free-lancers as well. Our last collection was done by Marja Suna, Leena Lind, Pirjo Rautiainen and Pentti Rinta.”

Marimekko also goes abroad for designers, like the respected Japanese Fujiwo Ishimoto.

“They help keep us fresh and contemporary,” Koljonen said.

One traditional Marimekko item is the “everybody” casual shirt, with a stripe whose color changes twice a year. It has been produced for 30 years. Like other Marimekko fashions and fabrics, the shirts are merchandised through licensed outlets in the United States.

Marimekko’s problem, according to design experts, is how to keep a fresh look without losing the customers who prefer the more traditional patterns from the company’s past. This is particularly true now that Marimekko has been absorbed by a much larger company, the Amer Group, and faces the problems inherent in being a smaller, innovative firm caught up in a conglomerate.

Esa Kolehmainen, design director at the ceramics producer Arabia, agrees that Finnish designers are caught in a dilemma.

“It’s a very delicate balance,” he said, “how not to lose one’s fundamental design character yet keep up to date. Finnish superiority in design is something of a postwar phenomenon.”

Arabia, which takes its name from the section of Helsinki where it is situated, is Finland’s largest pottery and porcelain manufacturer. It has used the grand old men of Finnish design--among them Kaj Franck, a pioneer in clean, attractive styles for a wide range of household objects--and now has many young designers coming up with ideas.

“As for our national success,” Kolehmainen said, “after the war we needed new housing. We hadn’t built anything and we had refugees from the Russian-occupied Karelian area, and they needed things--space-saving things and ideas--for their new homes and apartments.

“Toward the end of the 1930s, we had been very much influenced by the Bauhaus School in Germany, and in the postwar period we were mature enough, as designers, to adapt this style to our native materials. Simplifying forms and making them functional--that’s our skill.”

Arabia now specializes in tableware, decorative gift items and ceramic art. It is now a division of a larger group, of which the glassware company Iittala is also a part.

Aware of New Techniques

Arabia uses many young designers. For example, a dinner set was done by Kati Tuominen and Pekka Paikkari; another by the American designer Howard Smith.

“Basically,” Kolehmainen said, “we Finnish designers must remain Finnish yet not be isolated. We must be aware of new techniques and materials. There is a running discussion in the country--how to strike the balance between being national and international.

“I think where Finnish design is concerned, certain common ideals have survived through the decades: functionality, durability, beauty. I think these will take us into the 1990s. After all, behind these words lies the strength of Finnish design: the traditions of functionalism, a healthy national pride and the beauty of Finnish nature.”

These qualities are imbued in many of Finland’s best young designers at the School of Applied Design, which is affiliated with the University of Helsinki. Executives of Finland’s top firms, men and women who know the value of design, keep an eye on the school’s outstanding students and, at graduation time, make an effort to employ the best of them.