We recently took a trip behind the scenes to see where Iittala's design heritage was born. An hour north of Helsinki, across sweeping stretches of folkloric Scandinavian landscape sits the Iittala glass factory. It's here where almost all Iittala glassware is still created, many by hand (or mouth), and also where future generations are apprenticed.
Click here to see pictures from inside the Iittala glass factory.
It’s deeply unusual for a design company to consistently be held so dear in the hearts of an entire nation as is the case with Iittala and Finland. But this a reflection of two things: Finnish attitudes towards design are that it’s a vital part of everyday life; the core principle behind the Iittala brand is that good design should be affordable and in turn used everyday.
The ever-expanding collection of crockery and glassware lines produced by Iittala, together with carefully selected guest designers, are meticulously crafted to fit in with each of the previous pieces. The company is keen to stress that they want buyers to mix and match their crockery into an eclectic set that reflects who they are as individuals, not simply to purchase an entire line from one designer (though obviously they don’t discourage this either).
The factory itself, as the name suggests, is responsible for the glassware ranges. Seeing the processes from beginning to end, and all the stages in between, including many a mishap and shattering, has a strange effect on the way one feels about the finished products. Thousands of Aalto vases, being blown, being rejected, being cooled, being burnished and polished far from reduces their value or appeal as one might expect. Instead, if anything, it makes them seem even more iconic to see the care and individual attention paid to each vase at each stage of the process.
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