The Alvar Aalto Museum’s main summer exhibition highlights Artek’s invisible masters

Over the decades, Artek’s drawing office employed a wide-ranging assortment of interior architects, textile designers, and applied-arts professionals. Their efforts are behind many familiar products, but, as individuals, as designers, they have remained almost anonymous. Some stayed at Artek for only a short time, while for others it became their entire career. Visibly Invisible – Artek’s Drawing Office 1936–2004 puts the spotlight on these talented creators, who shared in the making of Artek’s success story as a major player in modern European design and décor.

The drawing office’s practice was based on a powerful shared mission characterised by a commitment to aesthetically and qualitatively high-level design, and to Aaltos’ legacy. The drawing office was a collective whose activities spanned a broad spectrum of design tasks, from furniture for private and public spaces to the minutest details of the home. This comprehensive design approach also included interiors, textiles, fairs and exhibitions, as well as utility prints. In this work, the designers were uncompromising guardians and continuers of Artek’s approach. The free, creative use of structural elements based on Alvar Aalto’s innovations gave rise to a diverse spectrum of new furniture, to a more anonymous artek design that could be adapted for various spaces.

The exhibition brings out the varied work and output of the drawing office’s key designers, such as Maija Heikinheimo, Hellevi Ojanen, Pirkko Stenros, and Ben af Schultén. Also on display are masterworks designed for Artek by ceramicist Marita Lybeck, textile artist Li Englund, and designer Antti Nurmesniemi, who all collaborated with the drawing office. Sinikka Killinen, Marja Pystynen, and Marja-Liisa Parko had long careers at Artek, and are profiled here as skilled implementers of textile and interior designs. In the exhibition, we can recognise pieces of everyday furniture that are nostalgically familiar to many of us, and which have already become classics, such as the children’s high chair designed by Ben af Schultén, the children’s chairs in Kristian Gullichsen’s plywood Vanikka furniture range, and Anna-Maija Jaatinen’s vertical coat rack designed for Norrmark Handicraft.

The furniture and other items here are mainly from the Artek collection administered by the Alvar Aalto Museum. Private individuals and design collectors have also loaned objects for the exhibition.

Curators available for media interviews Thursday May 22, 1.00–3.00 pm.

Warmly welcome to the exhibition opening 22 May 2025, 6.00 pm!

Visibly Invisible – Artek’s Drawing Office 1936–2004
23 May 2025 – 14 September 2025

The Aalto2 Museum Centre is a meeting place for architecture, design and cultural heritage in Jyväskylä, Finland.