Iittala’s Ambient Light provides new inspiration for interior design

The four seasons and the unique quality of the light in the North have always been important sources of inspiration for Iittala’s designers. The long, dark Northern winter, in particular, has challenged designers to incorporate light into their creations; and Heikki Orvola’s Kivi, a benchmark design for a simple candleholder, for example, will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year. Iittala has now decided to bring all its pieces featuring light in one form or another under the umbrella of a new ‘Ambient Light’ concept. The range includes a mix of exciting new pieces and design icons, all featuring Iittala’s ‘Lasting Design’.

NEW PRODUCT
Ilkka Suppanen’s bright new Fireplace
Fireplace, by Finnish designer Ilkka Suppanen, represents a completely new type of product for Iittala. Suppanen has combined fire-resistant glass and metal to create a modern take on an open fire, this time fired on ethanol. He has taken the age-old idea of an open fire in the wilds, tamed it, and brought it inside, to create an environment where people can gather to chat and enjoy an evening together or where somebody can relax alone and put the worries of the day behind them. The design very much reflects Suppanen’s architectural leanings.

“Today’s televisions often play a similar role to that of the fires of the past, bringing people together to tell their stories and listen to those of others. I took this idea of the fire as an archetypical phenomenon as my starting-point – and ended up designing something with a very minimalist form of its own.
“The piece is very neutral until the flame is lit, only then does it come alive and take its place in a space and capture people’s attention.”

NEW PRODUCT
A modern version of a traditional oil lamp by Mats Broberg & Johan Ridderstråle
The Swedish design duo, Broberg & Ridderstråle, is fascinated by the role of symbols and archetypes in design. With their August oil lamp, they wanted to combine the nostalgic atmosphere of an old lamp with the latest technology. The shape of the resulting design owes much to classic designs, but strips away the details to reveal an elegant, modern vision. The design incorporates the latest LED technology, making it both easy and safe to use. The soft light it sheds reminds us of the time when electric light was still the preserve of the few in Scandinavia. The name August is also a clear reference to the past:

“We imagined the writer August Strindberg writing his plays in the light of a traditional oil lamp. This link with a classic period in literature seemed to fit perfectly with the design. And August of course refers to that time of year when the summer is coming to an end and the evenings are beginning to draw in – a time of year when light can be a great comfort to the soul … and is essential for crayfish parties!”

NEW PRODUCT
A unique hourglass by Thomas Sandell
Glow, designed by Swedish architect Thomas Sandell, is guaranteed to surprise, with a modern exterior that generates a soft, sensuous light when lit. The design is based on a simple conical shape, and is something of an homage to classic designer Kaj Franck, whose Kartio (“cone”) glassware celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Glow’s two cones bring to mind an hourglass and the passage of time, and invite us to take a moment out of time.

Made of stainless steel and glass, Glow highlights Sandell’s architectural sense of space, and its classic form makes it equally at home inside and out. Glow is available in a range of colours, making it easy to choose the one best suited to your surroundings. Updating an age-old tradition in this way proved an exciting challenge, Sandell says:

“I wanted to find a shape that would be beautiful even when not lit. And of course one that would bring the oil lamp bang up to date as well. There is nothing more beautiful than the flame of a small light outside; the only thing you can compare it to really is a sunrise over the Baltic.”

CLASSIC DESIGN
Heikki Orvola’s Kivi – 20 years old this year and still going strong
Professor Heikki Orvola’s Kivi candleholder very much embodies the key principles of simplicity, functionalism, and timelessness that underpin Nordic design. Kivi has been included as one of the 999 classic designs from the seventeenth century to the present day in the Phaidon Design Classics. The piece was designed on the basis of a commission from Marimekko in 1988, and began to be produced at the Iittala Group’s Nuutajärvi glassworks the same year, and was included in Iittala’s own range a couple of years later.

The design is so minimalist that one might easily imagine that it took endless stripping away of the unnecessary to reveal the final piece. As Orvola explains, however, the process was somewhat different:

“When I got the commission, I knew what they wanted from me immediately: a Scandinavian candleholder. I gave it some thought and then that ‘blunt piece of tube’ began to take shape in my mind. When I sketched the shape, I thought, that’s it right there – the only right solution.”

AVAILABLE AGAIN!
Harri Koskinen’s Atlas – poetry in glass
The pieces produced by Finnish designer Harri Koskinen reflect his long history of working with Iittala. He designed Atlas, for example, during his design scholarship at the Iittala glassworks in 1996, but it failed to capture the public’s imagination back then. The time is now ripe to relaunch the design. Its hand-blown form is an intriguing combination of dynamic strength and ethereal poetry, which ensures that it ‘works’ even when there is no light inside. Glass is a material that Koskinen knows inside out:

“My time at the Iittala glassworks taught me a lot. In particular, it gave me a deep respect for the ability of the glassblower to transform glass – such a living and sometimes difficult material – into precisely the shape the designer is looking for.

“Atlas is a challenging piece for the glassblower, and crystallises the mystical quality that glass offers, a material that is both soft and powerful at one and the same time. A candle in it only brings out the colour of the piece even more.”

A NEW CLASSIC
Harri Koskinen’s Lantern – an iconic Northern light
Harri Koskinen’s Lantern, designed in 1999, has already been described by some as a new Nordic design icon. Although in demand as a designer around the world today, Koskinen’s roots are still very much in Finland, something that is reflected in his uncluttered, natural style.

Lantern’s form speaks to everyone, and is a handsome design piece that creates its own space and sense of calm even without a candle alight inside. The white version highlights the simple elegance of the design, while the clear version gives full play to light and reflections – simple, but impressive.

“Light is an unbelievably important element for us in the North in creating an atmosphere and mood,” says Koskinen. “That’s why I wanted to give light a new stage from which to shine with my Lantern design.”

ADDITIONS TO THE AALTO COLLECTION
A new Aalto candleholder
Alvar Aalto’s famous series of sketches known as ‘An Eskimo woman’s leather breeches’ from 1936 resulted in a range of vases in different sizes, shapes, and colours for the Paris World’s Fair of 1937, and Iittala’s current Aalto collection continues to be one of the company’s most popular. A candleholder based on Aalto’s sketches was launched in 2006, the same year that the classic Aalto vase celebrated its 70th anniversary. A new colour has now been added, the eleventh so far – clear matte – combining visions of ice and fire in a very exciting way.

A new-design candleholder has also been added to the Aalto collection, featuring a metal base topped by a 355 mm-high glass bulb made of classic Aalto hand-blown glass. The design is ideal for tall candles and reflects their light off its curved surfaces in all directions. Pentagon Design is behind this new take on the classic Aalto form, which is a continuation of their pieces introduced as part of the 70th anniversary celebrations of the original Aalto vase.

Additional information:
Tuija Aalto-Setälä, Communications Manager, tel. +358 204 39 5255

Images:
Kirsi Lauttia, Communicator, tel. +358 204 39 6220
emails: firstname.lastname@iittala.com

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