Uncovering the Roots of Modern Finnish Design—Beyond Helsinki

25.08.2023 - 12:31 / cntraveler.com

The views from my car window are a Nordic cliché: long stretches of farmland that give way to thick forests of birch and pine. Rustic farmhouses painted a deep, punctuating red. A freshly thawed stream shimmering in the sunlight. I leave Finland's southern coast, fringed by islands and inlets, behind as I cut northwest through its lake-dotted interior. It's a beautiful landscape—though not one that traditionally draws the design lovers who flock to this country.

My interest in Finnish design began, as it does for many, with Alvar Aalto, the father of Finnish modernism, and grew as I studied legends like Yrjö Kukkapuro and Tapio Wirkkala and discovered the quirky genius of Marimekko. There's plenty to learn from Helsinki's arresting architecture and tucked-away boutiques, but the country's design identity has rural roots, and I set out on a pilgrimage to uncover them.

Once one of Finland’s largest ironworks, Ahlström Noormarkku is a beautifully maintained enclave of orchards and streams, idyllic cottages, and handsome industrial buildings.

A first glance at Ahlström Noormarkku, 160 miles west of Helsinki, reveals little of its place in Finnish history. Once one of the nation's most impressive ironworks, it is now a sprawling family-owned estate with guesthouses for the visitors who come to hike and hunt—and pay homage to an icon. Deep within the estate sits Villa Mairea, Aalto's 20th-century modernist gem. Aalto also developed his first product prototypes in Noormarkku—a foray that eventually grew into Artek, the renowned design company. The charming guest rooms, including mine, are peppered with his classics, like the webbed Model 45 chair, with its rattan woven arms, and the Tea Trolley 901, a Japanese-inspired birch cart.

The guest rooms at Ahlström Noormarkku are tributes to Alvar Aalto, who began his career in furniture design on its grounds.

After an astonishingly good dinner at the estate's restaurant, Peter Ahlström, the company's CEO, drives me past orchards and streams, worker cottages and handsome industrial buildings. As the fifth generation of his family to lead Noormarkku, he is the custodian of its history. Even with its business interests having shifted elsewhere, the extended Ahlström family continues to gather here. “The Finns are tied to where they grew up, to land and their ownership of it,” Ahlström explains. At the tipping edge of daylight, we spot a herd of roe deer and a single white-tailed one.

In the morning, fueled by a breakfast of savory Karelian pies, smoked salmon, and rye bread, I walk to Villa Mairea, designed in the 1930s by Aalto and his wife, Aino, for Maire Gullichsen, an art patron and the granddaughter of the ironworks' founder. It appears around a bend in a