AALTO – Aino Alvar Elissa. The Human Dimension of Design
texts by Lorenza Baroncelli, Andrea Di Nezio, Joseph Grima, Manuel Orazi, Flavia Parisi, Giorgio Vasta
bilingual Italian/English edition
Quodlibet
15×24 cm
192 pages
€ 24
Pioneers of sustainable design, the celebrated Finnish architects Aino, Elissa and Alvar Aalto have influenced generations of architects and designers worldwide with their buildings, humanistic approach to design and innovative use of materials. The catalogue, published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name, recounts the philosophy, not only of design but also of the vision of the Aaltos, tracing, as Joseph Grima writes: ‘The story of how buildings and design coexist in perfect harmony with nature and the people who inhabit them’. The book, through texts and a captivating iconographic apparatus, follows the conception and life of twelve projects realised by Studio Aalto through all the years of the professional career of its protagonists. The narration through images entrusted, on the occasion of the exhibition, to the photographer Ramak Fazel has made it possible to restore an original point of view on the architects’ work and create a multiform narrative in which the dimensions of the ordinary and the extraordinary coexist and dialogue. In the book, a thematic subdivision also describes some design objects conceived for low-cost mass production and still in production today, including glass works, lamps, textiles and furniture. This re-reading of the studio’s activity reveals the core of Aaltos’ work, in which architecture, art, and design coexist and represent inseparable parts of a unicum at the centre, which is the human being.
