Word: alvar
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Bohm practiced all the post-modernist tenets long before they were preached, yet his buildings provide none of the easy reassurance of neat taxonomy. His work has evolved continually, but not in response to shifts in fashion or doctrine. Like Finland's Alvar Aalto, Bohm invented his own humane, smart architectural dialect, and then waited patiently for the rest of the world to learn...
...York City, the winning virtues of Finland's Alvar Aalto...
...architect Alvar Aalto, bless him, was always slightly out of it. He never lingered at the hothouse of Germany's Bauhaus; instead he spent the '20s in provincial Finland, designing for towns. His buildings are modern all right, sleek and sensible and just a bit Martian, but Aalto never took the final vows of modernism. Strict symmetry and monoliths left him cold. Rather, an Aalto building is apt to swell or zigzag confoundingly, to have lines and textures that seem more botanical and geological than geometrical. Ahead of his time, he declined to enforce the brittlest dogmas...
...just as the tides started running his way. Unlike today's cutting-edge architects, however, who tend to turn wildly glib and goofy when they design furniture, Aalto took his chairs and stools seriously. An exhibition at New York City's Museum of Modern Art, "Alvar Aalto: Furniture and Glass," shows his winning virtues as a designer writ small. The best pieces are bareboned but sensuous, simultaneously playful and serene. Aalto designed objects that were likable. The furniture at MOMA is so quiet and good-natured, in fact, that the show has an almost bashful...
...visual morality, a powerful force for beauty and meaning. Nor is the modern mode of Scandinavian design frozen into an abstract machine aesthetic. It is a creative way of meeting changing practical and emotional needs. Seen in this context, Danish modern is fresh, exciting and timeless. Like Finnish Architect Alvar Aalto's bentwood armchair (circa 1929) or Norwegian Eystein Sandnes' 1959 porcelain tableware, Danish modern transcends fashion...