Finland: Living Design

This book is a record through pictures and impressions of a lifestyle from which the Finnish design sense evolved. In 480 photo-graphs, it is a glimpse of the unseen Finland, a place that is still largely a forested terrain with houses and cottages tucked in near lakes, down narrow lanes. It is a look into the private domains of a very private people. Thirty-seven homes— private houses, apartments in modern city blocks and renovated turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau style buildings, all lived in today-show innovative and well-detailed furnishings in a variety that reflects the tastes of each owner. It gives a feeling of sauna—much more than just a cleansing ritual—Midsummer, dark and long winter nights and summer days that last virtually twenty-four hours.

Seen also are collections by celebrated designers of old and new objects: functional furniture, colorful textiles, timeless glass, ceramics, cutlery and crafts. It was the work of such great architects and designers as Eliel Saarinen, Alvar Aalto, Tapio Wirkkala, Yriö Kukkapuro and many others, who in the decades following World War II, won prestigious awards that has made modern Finnish design internationally admired and respected. Here is an attempt to communicate the spirit of living design in a country known for excellence in crafts and industrial design... a place where simple objects today are made by sophisticated methods, but where people still trust their senses and accept and appreciate the ways of nature.