Word: wirkkala
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DIED. Tapio Wirkkala, 69, Finland's foremost designer in glass, ceramics, wood and metal, and a pioneer of the elegant, functional Scandinavian look; of a heart attack; in Esbo, Finland. Combining a hands-on knowledge of industrial production techniques, a sculptor's sensibility and a craftsman's intimate familiarity with his media, he was, in the view of many critics, the pre- eminent modern maker of such objects as vases, cutlery and glassware (including the distinctive frosted Finlandia vodka bottle...
...wife and partner, Ray Kaiser Eames, made good design American. There is the Dane Arne Jacobsen, whose sleek furniture and tableware for a while convinced the world that all good design must be Danish. There are two Italians (Ettore Sottsass Jr. and Marco Zanuso) and a Finn (Tapio Wirkkala), reflecting the international, eclectic diversity of the decorative arts in our time...
...marvelous "mushroom" vases of Finland's Tapio Wirkkala (1946-47) are another example of this. Wirkkala's artistic craft ennobles ordinary glass. It turns an industrial material into a living one. The same is true of Denmark's Finn Juhl's famous armchair of 1945 and, for that matter, all Danish-modern wood furniture. The sensuous, sculptural shapes seem to flow into one organic unit...
...foremost masterpieces in modern Scandinavian design are still those of the familiar masters, among them Aalto, Wirkkala, Denmark's Arne Jacobsen, and Sweden's Gunnar Asplund and Sven Markelius. But there are also many new names to reassure us that the tradition need not regress to mannerist neodeco or yield to the common denominator of market-researched commercialism. Scandinavian design, in fact, is still as vigorous at the end of this century as it was at the beginning...
Centers shift, in design as in other arts. Fifteen years ago, modern design still meant Scandinavia-birchwood tables and Wirkkala ceramics. Not today: the node from which the most inventive impulses in design now issue is Italy. Italian designers dominate their field in the '70s much as New York painters dominated theirs in the '60s. Last week in Manhattan, the Museum of Modern Art opened an impressive display of home furnishings and environments entitled Italy: The New Domestic Landscape. The show gives a fascinating overview of the projects-commercial, speculative and Utopian-that have occupied designers in Milan...