Tom Dixon’s patient approach to furniture design at Artek

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By Hannu Pöppönen
     
      Sitting amidst the lamps and furniture of his own design in one of the Finnish furniture manufacturer Artek’s stores, Tom Dixon, the creative director of the company, says that this is not what Alvar Aalto’s Artek should look like.
      Briton Dixon does not mean by his remarks to undervalue his designs, but he wants rather to explain the differences between various styles.
      Dixon says that his own style is more like the latest fashion, one that is likely to startle people in design circles but that will not endure for ever.
      ”Aalto’s thinking was very systematic and he had this relentless modernist's dream to make furniture for large masses. That is the major difference between me and Artek”, Dixon observes.
     
For four years, Dixon has acted as the creative director of Artek, set up in 1935 by four young Finns under the leadership of the visionary modern architect Alvar Aalto.
      Only last week, Dixon introduced his first Tom Dixon collection in Artek stores, and the launch turned out to be a success.
      ”I did not want to give the impression that we would turn this store into a Tom Dixon outlet. Now that several years have passed, I think that people understand that these two are different things”, Dixon explains.
      Artek and the Tom Dixon company jointly form an enterprise called Art & Technology, which is co-owned by Dixon himself and the Swedish investment company Proventus Design.
     
As a designer Dixon has been very productive in recent years. Founded in 2001, his company now employs 26 people and is constantly growing, Dixon reports.
      His own brand has lived up to those expectations that imply that a company has to launch something new all the time, while Artek has been rather sluggish in that respect.
      Over the past few years, new designs including a new bamboo line of furniture as well as some innovative chairs by Harri Koskinen and Eero Aarnio have been introduced.
      At the same time exhibitions and fairs, with pavilions designed by Japanese Shigeru Ban and other acclaimed architects, have featured retrospectives of Alvar Aalto’s classical furniture.
     
Artek has been regarded as part of the Finnish national heritage just like for example the textiles and clothing firm Marimekko.
      Great expectations have been linked with its operation, and if the company has not met the expectations, criticism has been intense.
      ”It took a long time to realise that Artek is a company with firm traditions in Finland”, notes Dixon, whose office is based in London.
      According to him, it has taken plenty of time and energy to make the Artek brand known and to build distribution channels abroad.
     
Dixon has a calm attitude towards the future of Artek, and even the co-owner Proventus has faith in it, he says. Moreover, sales have gone up as well.
      ”Artek is growing in a healthy way. Everything has taken longer than we expected, but we are moving ahead in the right direction in this tough global situation”, Dixon concludes.
     
There have also been some failures , Dixon admits.
      When he started as Artek’s creative director, Dixon said that his aim was to make similar technological innovations to those in Aalto’s wooden furniture.
      One trial run was buried some years ago, after Artek had exhibited furniture by Eero Aarnio at the Milan Furniture Fair. The frames of Aarnio’s chairs resembled the design of Aalto’s wood furniture, but as they were cut from large plywood sheets the losses of material in the manufacturing process were considerable.
      ”They were too expensive to make. It is a shame, as their sculptural design worked really well”, Dixon says with regret.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 26.9.2008


Previously in HS International Edition:
  New age dawning at Artek (31.8.2004)

Links:
  Artek
  Tom Dixon
  Tom Dixon / Designing Modern Britain - Design Museum Exhibition

HANNU PÖPPÖNEN / Helsingin Sanomat
hannu.popponen@hs.fi