Tapiovaara, who died in 1999, originally trained as an interior architect and later became a prolific designer whose ideas focused on democratic design during Finland’s post-war era. It’s his work that we will approach in our rubric of the 20th century best designers.
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“Tapiovaara wanted good design for everyone,” says Jukka Savolainen. “He did Ikea before Ikea, good quality pieces at an affordable price – the same kind of packaging and mass production ideas as Ikea has done.”
Although never gaining the same reputation as his fellow Finnish designer and predecessor Alvar Aalto, Tapiovaara shared similar principles – that design should be for everyone and not just the rich.
“Ilmari Tapiovaara might be the second best-known Finnish furniture designer after Alvar Aalto, but is surely the number one regarding the issues on designer’s social responsibility,” says Suvi Saloniemi. “Alvar Aalto, who was the idol of Tapiovaara, set the standards for democratic design thinking in Finland, but it was Tapiovaara who developed them in full scale in post-war Finland, suffering from severe austerity.”
After graduating in 1937 from the department of furniture design at Helsinki’s Central School of Applied Arts, Tapiovaara worked as an assistant for six months at Modernist architect Le Corbusier’s office in Paris.
A year later he began work as artistic director and designer at Asko Oy, then the largest furniture manufacturer in Finland.
The Second World War put his career on hold, but his efforts to provide affordable furniture for the public after the event were significant.
“After the war, society was in bad shape and Finland had huge debts to Russia,”. “There was no glamour in the design profession at that time, they just needed to rebuild the nation.”
Even though he worked internationally and many of his chairs are easily recognisable, his name and some of his other design work are not well known outside his home country.
“He’s so iconic in Finland,” said Saloniemi. “Finnish people know his chairs and only his chairs, everyone sat on his chairs at school.
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Source:: brabbu.com
20th century best designers: Ilmari Tapiovaara
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