2025 Finnish Architecture and Design Days are celebrated from 31 January to 7 February. The theme is Traces of use, highlighting the use, maintenance and repair of buildings and objects. I cannot emphasize the importance of the theme too much. Circular economics in construction business is a must these days.
Artek High Chair K65
Alvar Aalto designed Artek High Chair K65 in 1935. We have two chairs at home, both with clear lacquer birch seats. My in-laws bought the older chair in the 1970s. In recent years, the chair moved to our home and we thought it needed a buddy. That’s when we bought a new K65 chair. They indeed have a place in our home.
When thinking about traces of use, I immediately thought of our chairs – so similar, yet the other shows 40 years of life. I decided to photograph our chairs for this blog post. So I carried my gear to the kitchen. I created this dramatic albeit simple lighting quickly with only one Profoto B10 with OCF Snoot, using black background. I used Canon EOS R5 and EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, shooting tethered to my MacBook Pro and editing with Capture One Pro.
The 2025 Finnish Architecture and Design Days main event is organised in culture centre Stoa on Jan 30th. Hope to see you there! You can find more info about the festival here.
2025 Finnish Architecture and Design Days are organised by Archinfo, Finnish Design Info, Alvar Aalto Foundation, Museum of Finnish Architecture, Designmuseum, Ornamo, EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Association of Finnish Architects’ Offices ATL, Finnish Association of Architects SAFA, The Building Information Foundation RTS, Finnish Association of Landscape Architects MARK and Finnish Association of Interior Architects SIO. The event is part of the European Heritage Days programme.
Here is my blog post from the year 2024 Finnish Architecture and Design Days.