Understanding Materiality and Functionality

in Alvar Aalto’s Furniture Design

Introduction
Aalto began designing furniture which was case-specific to the site as an extension to his architectural
thinking. Out of all the developments in the industry of furniture design, the one that may be best
rewards concentrates regarding Alvar Aalto's plans in the development of furniture-production by
machine. Alvar Aalto had an ideology of producing furniture with the help of machine but keeping in
mind the handicraft quality of it. As a designer, he tweaked the properties of the material to bring out
its natural character. Extensive research has been done in the methodology used by Aalto in his unique
characteristic development of furniture design. The naturalness that instinctively comes out as a
feature of his furniture, which is known as Organic theory, is constantly used as a source for analyzing
his works.

Alvar Aalto's desire for an engineered answer for the specialized and mental complexities of
configuration separates him from the centre gathering of present-day development which looked for
expressive force through decrease and polarization. His works are unconventional including fusion of
distinct scholarly categories and strategies. Nature has always been a source of inspiration and a
medium to build. Aalto being a classicist design refers to a combination of simplistic things which
emerges as a pleasing set design. The combination used by him in amalgamation with his traditional
approach is known as Nordic Classicism. Aalto is a designer who took care of style and aesthetics also
considering the ergonomic factors with the appropriate material chosen. The combination of such
characteristic brings out factors of harmony so as they fit in the modern architecture.

Interpretation of his works has a clear juxtaposition of functional values that take in consideration the
ergonomic factors, the dimensions of human being and also a study that responds to the amount of
time a human being sits at his place till he completes the given task. Along with functionality, the
approach of using the traditional materials of Finland and exploiting it to form the desired shape. The
relation of a geometric and organic form of Alvar Aalto is something unique about his works. The
interpretation of form follows function is evident in his works.

Keywords
Wood, Contemporary, User-centric, Materiality, Experiment, Design

Statement of Problem
Logical argumentation in the field of furniture design is a crucial part which deals into formulating key
aspects in the particular topic. An individual spends most of his time sitting and working for different
purposes and for a different time interval. So, the character of each chair or stool should be unique to
another which response not only to the activities supporting but also the context where it is placed.
Thus, taking into consideration the various forms and features of the furniture design and
understanding them with the lens of works of Alvar Aalto. In response to the nature of the study
finding the crucial hints given by Alvar Aalto in his works and deriving logic behind the form and
connecting with its function.
Research Question
The role of materiality and functionality that make the foundation or the base for the
furniture. How the smaller factors combine to form the wholistic furniture piece or
chair.

Literature Review
Alvar Aalto is a Finnish architect, city planner and furniture designer. His works have a distinguishing
mix of modernism with the use of indigenous materials with a blend of expression of forms and details.
Aalto being a classicist designer refers to a combination of simplistic details which emerges as a
pleasing set of design. The commissioned furniture pieces in the Viipuri library has their unique quality
which had a free ribbon-like form made from laminated wood which identified his works as a designer.
Critical Regionalism was a factor hence developed in his pieces which took into consideration the
function of the space along with its context and the unique quality of his furniture. Aalto’s work in the
field of furniture dates back to 1930s where he furnished the first piece at Paimio Sanatorium.

Although influenced by several traditional and contemporaneous sources, elements in their

furnishings and decoration appear intentionally distorted: legs which were thinner or more boldly
profiled than normal, balusters which whimsically modified
the conventions of the "split spindle" motif, oddly
proportioned knobs and turned pieces, and the addition of
idiosyncratic decoration. (Pallasmaa, 1998). The methodology
in designing furniture adopted functionalist approach taking
in consideration rational technique, sequential creation and
machine aesthetics. Aalto's association with the European
avant-garde, coupled with his direct experience of the
canonical works of the modern movement, enhanced his
leadership position as a functionalist in Finland. (Pallasmaa,
1998) Otto Korhonen, technical manager of Turku joinery
firm, he was instrumental in assisting Aalto with the technical
aspects of his designs. The collaboration of two led to a series
Figure 1 Testing the properties of wood
of chairs characterised by moulded curves made of laminated
wood. In his furniture, the audacious manipulation of wood
might be thought of bravura were it not always justified by the physical properties of the material.
(MoMA, 1983)

The development of furniture pieces by Aalto was in a relationship with the physical spaces he
designed. The ideological of simplistic yet standing out feature which he used in his architectural work
were reflected in this. Straight lines and a smooth curve are the biggest features in his design. The
user of the chair remains the same but the way of occupying it differs. As with the development and
introduction to the industrial revolution, the making techniques also started hinting much more
potentials than usual. The power production had more potential in developing aesthetically pleasing
products but had its own set of limitations.

Furniture pieces designed by Aalto have a very peculiar quality of deriving a relationship with the
users. Furniture as an element tries to harmonize within the built. With the changes in lifestyle and
contemporizing the spaces and the elements in the space started to go hand-in-hand with the habits
inherited or occupied by the users. The user of the furniture retains the same quality as it had before,
same muscular construction and a human frame but what changed were automobiles and clothes.
The relationship of consumer and of that to the designer and manufactures is very strong and thus
following the growth of new forms in relations to changing needs of a user.
Materiality

Aalto's thorough knowledge of the various properties of wood guides his imagination in putting them
to work architecturally, under the direction of his unique aesthetic
sensibility. (MoMA, 1983) Due to the abundance of the presence of
wood around him and his constant attraction towards nature, he
started modifying and experimentation with wood. The typology of
wood used is ‘Birch’. The experimentation led to a very unique style of
straight and curved. One of the examples being ‘Stacking side chair,
1929’, constructed with the help of solid birch members framed by thin
seat and back. The only complication being the chamfered front rail
which technically reduced the mass of the frame making it less
cumbersome. In continuation of this, the stacking chair used in Paimio
Sanatorium has a very fine plywood seat which gives lightness which
revolutionised the ideology of furniture. During this period, he became
fascinated with the possibilities of laminating and bending wood. In
Korhonen's factory, the two men would experiment by cutting into Figure 2 Stacking Chair
blocks of birch, bonding layers of wood together, and trying to coax
them into ever more eccentric forms. (MoMA, 1983) Abandoning the usual 4-legged chair, the new
stylised Paimio Chair was ‘the first soft wooden chair’ which was admired not only for its form but also
its sculptural quality and comfort.

Not all of his furniture was made of wood, but also tubular steel, which
was one of the most appealing material in between young designers.
Even with the play of metal, Aalto could not surrender wood. For him,
wood was the material that structurally motivating and was profoundly
a human material. As he designed a set of furniture for Paimio
Sanatorium, in a similar way committee of Municipal Library of Viipuri
commissioned him to produce a set of furniture which was
characteristic. It was a time when he came up with a radical solution of Figure 3 X-leg of a Stool
joinery connecting the horizontal plate and vertical legs. His solution has
the virtues of being structurally sound, visually pleasing, and economical. (MoMA, 1983) Aalto
referred to the furniture leg as "the little sister of the architectonic column. (Miller, 1987) Aalto as a
designer always kept characterising the furniture and the technical details necessary for it.

Similarly, joinery that changes the conventional way of looking at the joinery of how the vertical
elements combined with the horizontal. In his proposition, the most important furniture development
was bent knee, which opened up a new set of dimensions in his development of furniture. The joinery
yielded a new set of stackable chairs which had the possibility of mass production along with the
possibility of Flexible Standardisation. The successful set of experiments led a very independent set of
the production unit which manifested the unique character portrayed by his furniture

Functionality

Aalto as a designer had always been developing the pieces with a very rational approach. The
perceptive quality led him to the design of the first soft wooden chair. He took care of smaller details
like connecting the horizontal plate with vertical legs that led to a comfortable seat with the tint of
uniqueness which emerged because of the joinery. The character of his furniture pieces was Flexible
Standardisation which in a way helped to design furniture of required height and eventually forming
a better functioning chair which looked into the matter of the users using it. The first series of such
chairs appeared in Viipuri Library.
The functionality of the chair was not only in terms of the ergonomic factors and the dimension
generated by the chair but also by the way the material was used. Naturally, available softwood
enhanced the curvaceous form of the chair and hence supports the muscles of the human body to sit
a bit relaxed. The user/consumer of the chair has a skeleton and a set of muscles that have not
metamorphosised but surely the habits and tastes for them have. The long seating hours have made
a human into a well-settled civilization.

The posture of seating though remained constant but the guiding factors kept on changing. Time
interval of sitting became one of the most important guiding
factors in terms of furniture design. For example, long seating in
theatres requires maximum comfort, a shape corresponding to a
position in which the head comes to its natural vision. Similarly,
dining might require an upright seat with back support while the
chair for relaxing has a lower height, armrest with more degrees
of angulation. The mentioned typology might remain constant
but the lifestyle and environment being secondary factors
affecting the posture in sitting. The design of the furniture then
Figure 4 Posture study
comes to the factor of dimension which carries it to the
standardization criteria in the industry of furniture design. A
standard object or a product ought not to be complete, on the contrary, to be produced in such a
manner that all the users using the product amplifies its form.

Methodology Diagram

Findings
The designs by Aalto are a combination of sustainability with
style keeping in mind the ergonomics of the product. Furniture
experimentation is known to be illustrating the relation of the
designer, manufacturer and the consumer which provides a new
set of norms in the evolution of furniture design. Not only do we
inherit the bodily sitting mechanism of our fathers, but sitting has
become the most universal occupation of mankind in what may
Figure 5 Wood Bending
be termed sedentary modern life: we should be expert sitters.
(MoMA, 1983) Connecting the dots of his materialistic operations
and connecting it with the ergonomic factors, his designs resided power as they retained a unique
quality of handicraft dependent on the methodology of gathering and assembly. The materiality used
and the functionality developed in the production of the chair was not only a furniture piece made to
sit in a physical environment but also an extension to his design thinking similar as the making of a
building. Engaging with the smaller scale widened the horizon in terms of compositional and tectonic
values in different scales, exploiting the functions of the materials and also the details that
corresponded to the architectural site and his conception towards built.

Scope and Limitation

The study revolves around a designer Alvar Aalto about his perceptions towards the materialistic
properties of wood of how the exploitation of its characteristic revolutionised the making of furniture
as a whole.
The scope of the study
- As the study talks about a designer, it can rationally elaborate on the methods used to derive
to a certain conclusion.
- The designer, Alvar Aalto, does not consider his elements as isolating modules but in harmony
with the build, therefore allowing an added perspective in the study.
- The analysis also deals with the evolution of the standards that a human had around him that
affected his/her seating habits.

The limitation of the study

- The study revolves around the pieces developed by Aalto and hence comparisons and the
study of the elements sticks around the periphery.
- The case taken for the study has a consideration of two types of seating elements which are
chair and stool hence restricting the area of comparison and study.

Significance of the Study

The study talks about a designer, his ways of looking towards a piece of furniture and formulating a
set of ideals in deriving the most coherent form of furniture. When people look at the elements of
furniture in isolation and he took it as an extension to his architecture. The study derives a practical
approach which could be taken as a criterion of furniture. Along with that the application of Flexible
standardisation which allows a user a unique typology of furniture though being one of the designed
one.

Bibliography
Aalto, A. (1984). Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved from moma.org: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1792

Aalto, A. (1984). Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved from moma.org: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1802

Correction: Furniture, Painting, and Applied Designs: Alvar Aalto’s Search for Architectural Form. (1988). The Journal of
Decorative and Propaganda Arts, 8, 125. https://doi.org/10.2307/1503975

Pallasmaa, Juhani: “Alvar Aalto: Toward a synthetic Functionalism”; in Reed, Peter (ed.): Alvar Aalto, Between Humanism
and Materialism, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1998, p.20-45

List of Figures
Fig 1 Testing the properties of wood, A Stool Makes history - Alvar Aalto Foundation. (n.d.). Google Arts & Culture.
https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/a-stool-makes-history/QRQs-mBx

Fig 2 Stacking Chair. (n.d.). [Photograph]. https://www.phillips.com/detail/alvar-aalto/UK050415/229

Fig 3 X-leg of a stool, A Stool Makes history - Alvar Aalto Foundation. (n.d.). Google Arts & Culture.
https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/a-stool-makes-history/QRQs-mBx

Fig 4 Huijben, B. T. (2018, October 27). Archive: Alvar Aalto | Designblog. Designblog.
https://designblog.rietveldacademie.nl/?tag=alvar-aalto

Fig 5 Wood bending, A Stool Makes history - Alvar Aalto Foundation. (n.d.). Google Arts & Culture.
https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/a-stool-makes-history/QRQs-mBx