Artek and the Aaltos

The Bard Graduate Center Gallery produces multiple exhibitions and publications each year, serving as a vital center of learning and a catalyst for engagement in the interrelated disciplines of decorative arts, design, and material culture. The gallery is celebrated in the museum world for its longstanding legacy of landmark projects dedicated to significant—yet often understudied—figures and movements in the history of decorative arts and design; these exhibitions and publications typically represent the definitive intervention on the artists and objects they investigate. BGC Gallery is also committed to generating and supporting a vast range of diverse presentations, small and large, that challenge traditional approaches to object inquiry; these examinations of material culture explore the human experience as manifest in our creation and use of “things” of all kinds. Whether originating in internal research and expertise, or in collaboration with external subject specialists, these endeavors prioritize rigorous scholarship while seeking to adhere to the field’s highest standards in production and design.

This is the first in a bimonthly series of photo-essays featuring objects from the Artek and the Aaltos exhibition and additional photographs, sketches, and other ephemera from the Aalto Family Collection.

Alvar Aalto and Aino Marsio both studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute in Helsinki, but it is not clear whether the two knew each other as students. Marsio began her studies in 1913 and received her degree in January 1920, as one of several female architecture students, while Aalto entered the program in 1916 and graduated in May 1921.

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Alvar Aalto and fellow architecture school students, 1917. Aalto Family Collection.

Both Aalto and Marsio were required to attend lectures in the history of architecture and furniture, and they each completed several practical internships. Marsio’s detailed notes on construction, seen below, reveal the rigorous study required at the Polytechnic Institute.

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Aino Marsio. Sketchbook with architecture school assignments, ca. 1916–20. Graphite on paper. Aalto Family collection.

Travel was also a key component of their education. In 1920 and 1922, Aalto visited Denmark and Sweden, where he may have made the architectural study below. Following her graduation in 1921, Marsio made a summer study trip to Germany, Austria, and Italy with two other women from her class. Marsio documented this trip with numerous photographs, as well as a travel sketchbook that demonstrates her often under-recognized skill in drawing.

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Alvar Aalto in Copenhagen, 1920. Aalto Family Collection.

Kirstin Purtich, Project Assistant Curator for Artek and the Aaltos: Creating a Modern World, is an alumna of the Bard Graduate Center master’s program.

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