Design Moment: Savoy Vase by Alvar Aalto, c.1936

Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (1898 -1976) was clearly a details man.

Commissioned (alongside his wife, Aino Marsio) in 1936 to design the swanky Savoy restaurant in Helskini, he thought through every aspect of the interior right down to this vase.

Its curvy, folded shape is inspired by the full skirts worn by the indigenous Sami people and as a practical piece of design it works by letting the flowers in the vase fall away from each other so that all diners around a table are faced with flowers.

It’s also that rare thing: a vase that looks great empty – mostly they look forlorn and strange if put on display.

It’s called the Savoy Vase, but really it’s the Alto name that is usually attached to it and it has proven to be a design classic.

The Savoy commission coincided with a design competition held by Finnish glassworks Karhula-Iittalia and Alto entered this vase – his rough crayon-on- cardboard drawings are on show at the Design Museum in London – and it has been in production at the Iittalia glassworks ever since then.

It’s now available in various colours and sizes as well as the clear glass original.

Alto never made any money from the vase because the competition rules stated that the design belonged to the canny glassworks, but it caused a sensation when it was shown at the World’s Fair of Paris in August 1937.

By the time he created the vase his career built on his modernist designs for several buildings in his home country was firmly established and in the late 1930s an exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art in New York celebrated his buildings, his furniture, and the vase.