AALTO - Aino Alvar Elissa - la dimensione umana del progetto/ The Human Dimension of Design

Pioneers of sustainable design, the famous Finnish architects Aino, Elissa, and Alvar Aalto have influenced with their buildings – a humanistic approach to design and the innovative use of materials – generations of architects and designers all over the world. The catalogue published for this show recounts the philosophy not only of design but also of the Aaltos’ vision, tracing, as Joseph Grima writes, “the history of the way buildings and design coexist in perfect harmony with nature and the people who live there.” The book, through written text and a captivating array of images, follows the conception and life of twelve projects realised by Studio Aalto, retracing all the years of its principals’ professional careers. The visual narrative, entrusted for the show to the photographer Ramal Fazel, enabled the presentation of an original point of view on the work of the architects and the creation of a multiform story in which the dimension of the ordinary and the extraordinary coexist and engage in dialogue with each other. In the book, an organisation by themes presents also some of the design objects conceived for mass production at low cost and still today in production, including glass objects, lamps, textiles, and furniture. This rereading of the activity of the Studio reveals the fulcrum of the Aaltos’ work, in which architecture, art and design coexist and indeed represent inseparable parts of a whole whose centre is the human being.