Jonas Forth's surprising facts about Finnish design

While tooling around the Interwebs the other day, I ran across a list called 20 Surprising Facts about Finnish Design Icons, written by Jonas Forth. To be more accurate, there are 24 surprising facts, because Jonas was apparently feeling generous the day he compiled the list.

I'm only going to tease you with a few of them, because I want you to go to his site and let him tell the rest of the stories.

From jonasforth.com


The iconic Fiskars scissors by Olof Bäckström were meant to be red, green or black but due to the production manager using what was left in the moulding machine from making plastic juice pressers, some of them turned out orange. They took a vote and orange won 9-7.

The metal holder that surrounds the glass in Timo Sarpaneva’s Tsaikka series was made from recycled zipper waste. His brother Pentti, who made jewellery, experimented with similar ideas.

The best way to identify a real Aalto 60 stool is by how the screws are attached to the bottom of the base. They’ve basically been made the same way since 1933.

Pentti Sarpaneva

Pentti Sarpaneva

Pentti Sarpaneva (1925-1978) was a Finnish jewelry designer. The older brother of more famous glassworker and sculptor Timo Sarpaneva, he was a graphic designer before he began to work with metals in his thirties.

He worked primarily in silver and bronze, occasionally using local stones such as rose quartz, smoke quartz and amethyst in his designs. It is thought that memories of his shamanistic, blacksmith grandfather and the landscape of his native Finland must have influenced the textures of his pieces, which evoke molten metal, melting icicles, volcanic lava and tree bark. His work reflects an interest in nature in Finnish design at the time.

His bold, modern design was produced by the firms of Turun Hopea and Kalevala Koru. While it evoked strong emotion, it was unlike any other jewelry being produced in his country at the time, and it was not particularly well received by the public.

From hopea20.com, modernsilver.com and watchprosite.com

Ring
watchprosite.com

Bracelet
watchprosite.com

Pendant
watchprosite.com

Pendant
lysandercollection.com

Pendant
wigerdal.com

Pendant
watchprosite.com

Necklace and ring
rubylane.com

Pendant
ebay.com - oppis46

Necklace
ebay.com - oppis46

Pendant
watchprosite.com

Pendant
watchprosite.com

And is it just me, or does Eric Clapton bear an uncanny resemblance to Pentti Sarpaneva? I know I've been a bit Clapton-obsessed for the past 40 years or so, but surely I'm not the only person who sees it.