Artek was founded in Helsinki in 1935 by four young idealists: Alvar and Aino Aalto, Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl. Their aim was deceptively simple, "to sell furniture and to promote a modern culture of living by exhibitions and other educational means."
Ninety years on, that same spirit of quiet radicalism still runs through everything Artek makes. It remains one of the genuinely innovative names in modern design, working at the point where furniture, architecture and art meet.
The collection, furniture, lighting and accessories from Finnish masters and leading international designers, stands for clarity, function and a poetic simplicity that's easy to admire and hard to imitate.
Even the name tells the story. Artek is a fusion of "art" and "technology", the two ideas at the heart of the modernist movement that swept through the 1920s. It was Walter Gropius who coined the phrase "art and technology, a new unity," using "technology" to mean science and industrial production, and "art" to mean something far broader than painting and sculpture. It stretched to architecture, design and the whole considered shape of everyday life. Modernism set out to bring those two worlds together, and Artek's founders named their company after that same ambition.
Artek is now part of the Vitra group of companies.
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Artek A330S Golden Bell Pendant Light
Artek 611 Dining Chair
Artek A331 Beehive Pendant Light
Artek A110 Hand Grenade Pendant Light
Artek A333 Turnip Pendant Light
Artek A805 Angel Wing Floor Light
Artek A808 Floor Light
Artek A811 Floor Light
Artek Armchair 41 Paimio Lounge Chair
Artek Aslak Dining Chair
