Alvar Aalto Savoy glass dish, iittala Finland c2000s

Alvar Aalto glass Savoy vase, iittala Finland, c2000. A recent example of this famous vase. Name etched to base.

Excellent condition.

Without question the most important piece of Finnish glass design ever made is the so called Savoy vase designed by the leading modernist architect Alvar Aalto in 1936. Originally blown into a wooden mould, its biomorphic shape is supposed echo that of a Finnish lake. It was first shown at the Paris Universalle Exposition in 1937. With the dominance of weighty geometric Classicism all around, exemplified by the huge pavilions of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany on the main thoroughfare, this object, tucked away in the modernist Finnish pavilion, dances design into the future. A Twentieth Century icon. Signed and dated original examples for the 1930s can now sell for more than £20,000.

Alvar Aalto (1898-1976) is one of the most important architects and designers of the Twentieth Century. After graduating from architecture in 1921 he travelled in the Nordic countries and did his military service. His early designs were for small houses in a classical style. In 1924 he married Aino Aalto (neé Marsio) and they went on to become an important designing couple with a shared studio. Aalto's prominence developed in the 1930s after he adopted modernist functionalism under the influence of Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius. His work as a designer also developed during that decade. He began to introduce biomorphic shapes into his designs for chairs and glass objects, using the lakes and mountains of the Finnish landscape for in.fluence. Most iconic of these is the so-called Savoy glass, first designed in 1936, and first exhibited in the Finnish Pavilion at the Paris World Fair in 1937. It was later on display at the Savoy Hotel in Helsinki, from which it got its name. Against a backdrop of the dominant 1930s motifs of Classicism and an Art-Deco geometric style, this vase was revolutionary and ushered in the fluid neo-functionalist style that was to become dominant in design over the next two decades. This vase has become one of the most iconic pieces of Twentieth Century modern design. Early examples were hand blown into wooden moulds, later ones into metal moulds. It has remained in production for most of the time since it was first made