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Rare Alvar Aalto Cantilever Armchair Model 26, Artek, Finland

About the Item

Very hard to find Model 26 armchair is designed by Alvar Aalto for Artek with frame in steel tube, painted matt black and with seat form pressed birch plywood, lacquered in black. Aalto designed Lounge Chair 26 in 1932, but only a prototype was produced back in the 1930s. The design of the chair combines the curved arc typical to Aalto with a strictly minimalist frame structure. The design is simple, the lines sinuous, the direct cut-out of the armrests from the seat a particularly elegant detail. This hard to curate and nowhere to be found unit was manufactured between 1970s and 1990s.

Creator:

Artek (Manufacturer),Alvar Aalto (Designer)

Dimensions:

Height: 29.93 in (76 cm)Width: 24.02 in (61 cm)Depth: 27.96 in (71 cm)

Style:

Scandinavian Modern (In the Style Of)

Materials and Techniques:

Metal,Plywood

Place of Origin:

Finland

Period:

Late 20th Century

Date of Manufacture:

2nd Half of the 20th Century

Condition:

Wear consistent with age and use.

Seller Location:

Espoo, FI

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU9197237500182

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Shop All Alvar Aalto

Alvar Aalto

An architect and designer, Alvar Aalto deserves an immense share of the credit for bringing Scandinavian modernism to a prominent place in the global arena. In both his buildings and in his vintage furniture — which ranges from chairs, tables and lighting to table- and glassware — Aalto’s sensitivity to the natural world and to organic forms and materials tempered the hardness of rationalist design.

Relatively few Aalto buildings exist outside Finland. (Just four exist in the United States, and only one — the sinuous 1945 Baker House dormitory at M.I.T. — is easily visited.) International attention came to Aalto, whose surname translates to English as “wave,” primarily through his furnishings.

Instead of the tubular metal framing favored by the Bauhaus designers and Le Corbusier, Aalto insisted on wood. His aesthetic is best represented by the Paimio armchair, developed in 1930 as part of his overall design of a Finnish tuberculosis sanatorium. Comfortable, yet light enough to be easily moved by patients, the chair’s frame is composed of two laminated birch loops; the seat and back are formed from a single sheet of plywood that scrolls under at the headrest and beneath the knees, creating a sort of pillow effect. Aalto’s use of plywood had enormous influence on Charles and Ray Eames, Arne Jacobsen, Marcel Breuer and others who later came to the material.

Concerned with keeping up standards of quality in the production of his designs, Aalto formed the still-extant company Artek in 1935, along with his wife, Aino Aalto, whose glass designs were made by the firm. In the latter medium, in 1936 the Aaltos together created the iconic, undulating Savoy vase, so-called for the luxe Helsinki restaurant for which the piece was designed.

Artek also produced Aalto pendants and other lighting designs, many of which — such as the Angel’s Wing floor lamp and the Beehive pendant — incorporate a signature Aalto detail: shades made of concentric enameled-metal rings graduated down in diameter. The effect of the technique is essential Alvar Aalto: at once precise, simple, and somehow poetic.

Find a collection of vintage Alvar Aalto stools, vases, dining tables and other furniture on 1stDibs.