Posted 12 years ago
cobaltcobold
(62 items)
I couldn't resist the color which is, as always, difficult to render in my modest pictures. I am not quite sure: Is it by Kaj Franck or by Timo Sarpaneva? There is a similar jug withour handle by Kaj Franck and another with handle by Sarpaneva. But normally these handles are in clear glass. this one has the same color as the body. It stands 28.7 cm high. Anybody can help me?
I'd say it's Sarpaneva, model i-114.
When this design was made Franck was working for Nuutajärvi, so it couldn't be his. I might be wrong but I think the Franck items made by Iittala are later editions of his Nuutajärvi Notsjö designs... I hope someone can confirm this.
Wirkkala also designed some simmilar jug, but with striped walls.
Dear autrohungaro, thank you, for this information. It's important what you say about Nuutajärvi. When was Nuutajärvi bought by Iittala? Perhaps I go to
http://www.kippis-design.de/
and ask them! I never saw the Wirkkala jug.
Ok, this is the Wirkkala jug
http://www.laatutavara.com/images/1762.jpg
And now a little bit of glass history: Iittala was founded in 1881, in 1917 was bought by the Ahlström company which had previously acquired the Karhula glassworks, and so created Karhula-Iittala. Then came the big success in the 1930s with Alvar and Aino Aalto. Kaj Franck won a design contest in 1946 and worked to Iittala until 1950, when he left to startt working for Nuutajärvi. Timo Sarpaneva took Franck's site at Iittala. In 1988 Iittala merged with Nuutajärvi Notsjö to become Iittala-Nuutajärvi, which was then taken over by the Finnish company Hackman in 1990, along with Arabia and Rörstrand. In 2004 it came under the ownership of ABN AMRO Capital and since 2007, Iittala is 97 percent owned by Fiskars, along with Arabia, Hackman, Fiskars, Rörstrand, and Höganäs Keramik.
Back to the 1988 merge, after it happen I believe that for a short time both companies were working as usual until the brands Iittala and Nuutajärvi Notsjö, much more prestigious in terms of quality (it started a Nüutajarvi Art series in 1975 that became Nuutajarvi Pro Arte in 1981 with a collection designed by Oiva Toikka). At some point, probably after the next merge, Nuutajärvi stoped existing as such, but Iittala created the Iittala Pro Arte that's basically Nuutajarvi. In 2009, Iittala created Iittala Art Works, which in their own words is "an annual collection that provides a designer and a team of craftsmen the opportunity to explore their creativity and experiment with their chosen material". The naugural collection was comissioned to Harri Koskinen, the 2010 collection to Oiva Toikka, but maybe due to the crisis, cannot find any refference to a 2011 or 2012 collection...
Wow, and I've written ALL this before 8:30 am!!! :)
You know what? You should write a Wikipedia article about them. These informations are missing, and generally speaking, you don't find many informations about glass in the Wikipedia. There is for example no article about Wiesenthahütte in the German Wikipedia (I should write it, I know).
The other thing: I would like to have the Wirkkala jug!
And is it a good thing, that Iittala is owned by a big company? Hm, perhaps I should by some shares! Iittala becomes more and more popular in Germany. In Berlin alone you have three boutiques.
Well, in fact all this information comes from the internet, only that from a couple different sources. You shoud absolutely write about WH!!! Or maybe we should all create a "Glassipedia", sort of a blog where we can tell all we know about a brand, a designer... being a blog we can always edit the text and receive feedback... Anyone interested? ;) I'd be the designer, of course, LOL!!!
As for being part of such a big company... I am not sure. Well, it seems the whole group is focused on more or less the same subject: good design in diferent materials. A good thing is they will be able to pay the best designers to create the best design for them, on the other hand hey will be mostly interested in numbers and markets and profits... but in any case it seems they are really working on excellent designs.
I'd be a part of it! It would give relevance to our subejct. Would be good also to publish pictures. And even to contact factories wich could publish old catalogues etc...
or collectors! I guess most of the factories don't exist anymore!
I thought of WMF which still exists but doesn't glass anymore. They have even an archive, but it's not present on the internet. Or let's imagine an archive with catalogues of Iittala. There could be copyright questions. But it seems to me that it would be in the interest of the factories.