Tag: Alvar Aalto

DocomomoUK: “Aalto in London” talk by Prof Harry Charrington | Tuesday, December 3 at 19:00 (GMT) at The Alan Baxter Gallery, 77 Cowcross Street, London EC1 + Online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Tuesday, 3rd of December 2024, 7pm-8.30pm (GMT)

Where: The Alan Baxter Gallery, 77 Cowcross Street, London EC1 + Online

Tickets in advance: Docomomo UK non-members: £13.70 incl fees

Tickets on the door: Docomomo UK non-members: £15

Tickets for Docomomo UK members: free

Westminster students (id required): free

The first ever exhibition of Aino and Alvar Aalto’s work took place at Fortnum & Mason in London in November 1933. Between then and 1939, 70% of all Aalto furniture produced was sold in London, primarily through the Finmar company who supplied clients as diverse as Heal’s, Highpoint and Alexander Korda.

This lecture explores the unique qualities that made Aalto furniture so appealing to architects and the public in London, the actors and agents involved in promoting it, such as Laszló Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Read and Philip Morton-Shand, how Finmar became the model for the Aaltos when they later set up Artek in Helsinki, and how furniture became the basis for the enduring connection between Finnish and British architecture.

Dr Harry Charrington, an architect and academic, was Head of the School of Architecture + Cities at the University of Westminster from 2014-24. He has combined academia and practice in the UK and Finland, including working for Elissa Aalto at the Aalto atelier in Helsinki and was a co-developer of Springhill CoHousing in Stroud.

Dr Charrington has a particular interest in the history of modernism, housing, and the relationship of architecture and planning. He was the founding editor of Scroope: Cambridge Architecture Journal and his book, Alvar Aalto: the Mark of the Hand won the RIBA President’s Award for Research.

Featured image: Alvar and Aino Aalto with Otto Korhonen, Wood Relief for the “Exhibition of Finnish Furniture”, Fortnum & Mason, 13 November 1933. 

London Festival of Architecture 2021 Film Screening: Aalto (Virpi Suutari 2020) + Prof Harry Charrington and Virpi Suutari in conversation | June 2, 2021 18:00-19:00

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

AALTO is a documentary film journey into the life and work of one of the greatest modern architects Alvar Aalto. The film shares the love story of Alvar and his architect wives Aino and Elissa Aalto. It takes the viewer on a cinematic tour to their creative processes and iconic buildings all over the world. We visit their buildings in Finland, a library in Russia, a student dormitory at MIT, an art collector’s private house near Paris, a pavilion in Venice – and many other unique places.

The film is available to watch 1-7 June. Register on Eventbrite to receive your free streaming link.

See the film trailer using event link.

Director Virpi Suutari and Professor Harry Charrington will discuss the film on 2 June 18-19.

Professor Harry Charrington, Head of School of Architecture + Cities, is also one of the main narrators and consultants in this newly released documentary film.

Tickets/Booking:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/aalto-virpi-suutari-2020-film-screening-tickets-150740666391

Architecture Research Forum: “Ecological Standardisation” Roberto Bottazzi & Harry Charrington, Thursday 5th April, Erskine Room, 5th Floor, 13:00-14:00

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

ROBERTO BOTTAZZI & HARRY CHARRINGTON: Ecological Standardisation

In 1966, Aino and Alvar Aalto worked together with Leonardo Mosso on a prototypical project for a series of warehouses for the Ferrero Company. Though the project was shelved shortly before going onsite, their collaboration had produced an original outcome. A former intern in Aalto’s office, Mosso had – up to that moment – been Aalto’s local architect for his Italian commissions. Centred on a critical investigation of their Ferrero Warehouse and Office project (1966–67), our research explores the evolution of an ecologically-motivated concept of reflexive standardisation premised on repetitive components and bespoke, or flexible, joints that ‘bind the elements’. The forum will examine the impulses that informed the Aaltos’ realisations of an elastic standardisation in the 1930s and 1940s, and how Mosso, one of the pioneers of computation in architecture, interpreted and extended this method at the city-scale through computation.

Roberto Bottazzi is a Senior Tutor at the Department of Architecture. He is interested in the history and uses of computational tools in architecture and urbanism.

Harry Charrington is Head of the Department of Architecture. He worked for Elissa Aalto, and co-authored the oral history of the Aalto atelier Alvar Aalto: The Mark of the Hand (2011).

When: 5 April 2018, 13.00–14.00

Where: Erskine Room, 5th Floor

The Architecture Research Forum is a seminar series hosted by the Architecture + Cities Research Group where staff present work-in-progress for discussion.

ALL WELCOME