‘A talk by Professor Harry Charrington

Tuesday, 3 December 2024, 19.00 – 20.30

at The Alan Baxter Gallery, 77 Cowcross Street, London EC1, and streamed

Tickets in advance: Docomomo UK non-members: £13.70 incl fees

Tickets on the door: Docomomo UK non-members: £15

Tickets for Docomomo UK members: free

Westminster students (id required): free

The first ever exhibition of Aino and Alvar Aalto’s work took place at Fortnum & Mason in London in November 1933. Between then and 1939, 70% of all Aalto furniture produced was sold in London, primarily through the Finmar company who supplied clients as diverse as Heal’s, Highpoint and Alexander Korda.

This lecture explores the unique qualities that made Aalto furniture so appealing to architects and the public in London, the actors and agents involved in promoting it, such as Laszló Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Read and Philip Morton-Shand, how Finmar became the model for the Aaltos when they later set up Artek in Helsinki, and how furniture became the basis for the enduring connection between Finnish and British architecture.

Dr Harry Charrington, an architect and academic, was Head of the School of Architecture + Cities at the University of Westminster from 2014-24. He has combined academia and practice in the UK and Finland, including working for Elissa Aalto at the Aalto atelier in Helsinki and was a co-developer of Springhill CoHousing in Stroud.

Dr Charrington has a particular interest in the history of modernism, housing, and the relationship of architecture and planning. He was the founding editor of Scroope: Cambridge Architecture Journal and his book, Alvar Aalto: the Mark of the Hand won the RIBA President’s Award for Research.’