Eero Aarnio – background and training
Eero Aarnio was born in Finland in 1932. From 1954 to 1957, he studied at the Institute of Industrial Arts in Helsinki and then worked as a freelance industrial designer and interior designer, as well as a photographer and graphic designer. In 1962, he opened his own design studio in Helsinki.
Part of a generation of Finnish designers
Aarnio belongs to the generation of Finnish architects and designers whose work was shaped by the trends of the 1950s, when Finland was beginning to establish itself in international design.
From natural materials to plastic
In his furniture designs, Aarnio experimented with natural materials such as wood and rattan cane. His early works include the Jattujakkara wicker stool and the Apple Tree chair. In the 1960s, however, Aarnio broke with the Finnish tradition of working with natural materials and increasingly turned to synthetic materials, especially plastic.
The round form as a leitmotif
True to his motto "The earth is a sphere", he designed his products without corners or edges. His products are among the best-known and most iconic furniture designs of the 1960s. In the 1960s, plastics changed furniture design like no other material before.
A pioneer of plastic furniture: Ball Chair and Kimara
Eero Aarnio was one of the first Finnish designers to work with synthetic materials such as fibreglass, acrylic glass and plastics. He became particularly famous for his Ball Chair, designed in 1963: a fibreglass shell with a round opening through which you can sink back into its upholstered interior. With this piece, Aarnio achieves an exemplary combination of visual modernity, objectivity and seating comfort, with a logical and economical use of material.
The Kimara chair, designed in 1983 as a cocktail chair for Asko, is considered the result of his computer-aided furniture production.
Awards and international presence
In 1968, Aarnio won the American Industrial Design Award for his Pastil chair. Many of his works can be seen in museums such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in the USA, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in the UK and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in France.
