Studioilse turns the VitraHaus loft into the home of a fictional couple for Vitra and Artek’s current exhibition

The loft of Harri and Astrid in Weil am Rhein, Germany, is the perfect fusion of their Finnish and German heritage: easy, understated and practical. A musician and set designer, respectively, they’ve blended their passions harmoniously, building a space for work, rest and entertaining that is full of light and life. Along the way they’ve been guided by a tenet of the legendary Finnish designer Alvar Aalto, that ’every house should be a fruit of our endeavour to build an earthly paradise for people’.

Harri and Astrid are, of course, fictional characters. They represent the shared values of Artek and Vitra, the two contemporary design brands that joined forces last autumn. Ilse Crawford of Studioilse curated the design of the loft, atop VitraHaus in Weil am Rhein, not only to celebrate Vitra’s recent acquisition of Artek - founded by Aalto - but to portray the collections as they are in life, not as artworks behind glass.

The loft will be open to the public all year, as an extension of the Vitra campus.