We had a lot of Brio-style toys before Brio was probably common. They were art toys—abstractions of real things. I mostly remember cars that were only cars in the fact they had wheels and generally had four corners. I remember a VW Beetle-like, natural wood semicircle with drilled holes as abstract driver’s and passenger windows. A wooden airplane with those same drilled passenger windows and no pilot windshield doesn’t look like a 737 replica, and I totally saw that, and bemoaned it. I remember thinking, “how am I supposed to FLY this plane or DRIVE that car if I can’t see where it’s going?”
We had a rocking horse that had two opposing arches of plywood connected at the ends that looked like one of those simple fish symbols you see on car bumpers. It had a wooden dowel at about a 75-degree angle through the middle that shot up through the top sheet, offset to one side of the “fish,” with an orange sphere that was supposed to be the “head” of the rocking horse, I guess. I always thought it looked like a lever of some kind for a game on The Price Is Right, which was cool to me. I liked it. I rode that thing silly but never saw it as a horse. It wasn’t until I was much older when my mom referred to it as our “old rocking horse,” that I realized what it was. If she’d told me it was a horse as a kid, I don’t know that I could’ve handled it. The more conscious I became of the physical world, the more absurd I felt my abstract toys were.
I became sort of a toy realist as I grew older, but have come to appreciate what toys like my earliest ones might have meant to my own creativity. Outside of the toys themselves, I imagined a lot of things into other things for play as I grew older. I made race car cockpits out of two chairs. I made bmx bikes out of upside-down stools. All of it for pretend play. Perhaps the lack of literal toys early on helped that process?
Today, if I feel strongly about anything, it’s that talent is just a beginning of great things happening. Nobody can achieve their maximal potential in anything without a great degree of imagination. I think that probably includes a nation too.
I come from a family of designers. That rocking horse is still owned by my sister Tia who is a designer and proprietor of Silvercocoon and Tia Keo/Art, a cottage design initiative and jewelry business she and her architect husband run out of their home in North Minneapolis. I bet that horse is worth something too! Would be worth more if I hadn’t been so hard on it though. Those toy abstractions that kind of pissed off my literal play sensibilities as a tyke didn’t seem to help my older brother and me to take up the family business, but they may have given us some instincts regarding design that most people wouldn’t have. The designer gene skipped my older brother, maybe broke off a couple of small pieces into me, then lodged squarely into my three younger siblings. My dad’s firm, Salmela Architect, is my dad’s own award-winning architecture micro-firm, that now employs my younger brother and landscape-architect-sister’s Turkish-born, architect husband. We live largely in the world of design as a family, even if I don't.
Before the youngest two designers were born, we spent summer vacations road tripping in a string of Volkswagon Vanagons, around the country, stopping intermittently, sometimes for painstakingly long periods, while my dad took pictures of and studied buildings. I remember sitting in the parking lot of the library at Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, for what felt like an eternity. Another one I remember clearly was the IBM building in Rochester, MN. My mom got so angry because the friends and family we were travelling with had left without us, while my dad disappeared with his Nikromat camera. Slides of both those buildings are in carousels in his office somewhere to this day. Never know when you need a reference.
I bet the three youngest are designers because they didn’t go through what the oldest two siblings did. Not all stops felt that way though. Those two stick out for some reason as the most egregious waits for my dad to finish up his studies. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water in western Pennsylvania, for example, was a joy to explore.
My dad is a self-imagined, self-taught, and self-trained architect. He started at the University of Minnesota, but quickly realized college wasn’t for him. He instead took a job with an engineering firm in Hibbing, Minnesota, as a draftsman, before very soon after, jumping at a chance to actually design for Damberg and Peck architects in nearby Virginia. That’s where we kids came into the picture.
By the late 1980s, he was turning heads as an architect, which was pretty amazing considering he was practicing in Virginia, Minnesota. If you could imagine a place more resistant to progressive architecture in the 1970’s and ‘80’s, congratulations, because I cannot. The fact anyone saw what he was doing for what it was, coming from there, can only be summed up as pure determination on my dad’s part, driven by the pure joy of designing and problem solving he emits from his essence. Not a lot of folks up there gave him an inch, but a few championed him, which made all the difference. Any of his projects that have been destroyed over his now-celebrated career have all been torn down near where we grew up. My dad is gracious, chalking it up to his lack of experience at the time, or him failing to deliver what the client needed. But when a building that left an impression on I.M. Pei gets razed, you kind of have to wonder perhaps if maybe the building was just in the wrong part of the world. To sum it up, he took after his grandpa, who tried to be a farmer in Pike Sandy Township—all rocks and trees. Salmela’s seem to like a challenge. In the end, we all moved to Duluth as the 1990s began, and not miraculously, things really took off for him after that.
Dad’s architectural education can be seen on the bookshelves of his home. We received a passive one by osmosis. He admires architects from all over the world and across the 20th and 21st centuries, but none has influenced him more than Finnish great, Alvar Aalto. Aalto was from Jyväskylä, where we are living. (Remember the full circle?) Aalto’s mark is all over this town. Mimmu and I had our pre-wedding reception in the Alvar Aalto museum. We swim with the kids at an Aalto-designed swim hall. Mimmu's mom lives a block from one of his most world-famous buildings--her town hall. We were immediately attracted to an Aalto-planned area in Jyväskylä of town that mixed his own sense for a community of row houses with the architecture of a local competitor of his. I’m not an expert, but I can usually spot Aalto even when I don’t know it’s coming. It’s kind of cool to feel the design language of my father, through his design hero, as I move around the city.
Aalto is just one of many great Finnish architects, and perhaps not even the most famous. The Saarinens, Eero and father Eiliel, really put Finnish architecture on the world stage. Eiliel’s imprint is indelible on Helsinki and Finland, but Eero’s mid-century masterpieces in America in buildings like the JFK TWA and Washington Dulles airport terminals, are only eclipsed by his marquee American structure, the St. Louis Gateway Arch.
Eileel Saarinen's Helsinki train station
Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch and TWA Terminal
Still, it was Aalto’s interplay with the natural setting and the feel of living spaces that are
innately very human and peaceful because of an ethos of structure and function relating to the natural setting of a building, that has always resonated with my dad and is what I think he most connects with. It is projected from the designers here today.
My dad in one of his favorite places; Aalto's Säynätsalo town hall
Design is one of Finland’s lasting legacies on the modern world and you can feel it in everyday life here. I certainly can with my passenger-seat experience to my dad’s life and career. While the country’s deeper practicalities lie in rough-hewn, traditional, farm and forest structures, modern and post-modern design elements, clean lines, light, color, and geometric balance, have all found their way into everyday life here along side those early, practical sensibilities. The two influences could be at regular odds here, but I’ve found they are often married together really well, indicating a general proficiency in the language of design in the Finnish population at large. It's like they know the rules. I feel confident saying the Finns are a people of generally very good taste and order. You’ll feel that stepping off the airplane in Helsinki and it will be driven home as you move about the country.
We have been looking at places to live since arriving. The modernity and quality of the architectural standards are felt in any search for living space. The attention to light and how a space feels gets consideration here readily. Placement and quality of windows and doors are fundamental. They get reverence. Materials are high quality everywhere, as they are the gateways from our lived spaces to the natural world around the buildings. It’s rare to see poorly placed windows and doors. The clean aesthetic of the way most new properties at all income levels are designed and finished are the clear giveaways of Finland’s place in the architectural design world. My dad is picky about where one might find comfort in a building, but it has been really easy to find affordable, mass-designed housing here, that he will enjoy visiting us in, especially if he can walk and see an Aalto building pretty easily. He might have to settle for Matti Nykänen’s ski jump, as luck would have it, but that will delight him too.
Growing up, we also had lots of homemade, dad-designed furniture—some of it functional and pretty cool, some of it not so much (sorry dad!). We had these chairs made mostly of dowels that suspended a seat and a backrest that swiveled, with fabric suspended between them, with thin leather straps as arm rests. They were light and easily movable, but they had two major drawbacks; 1. my legs fell asleep in them if I sat in them too long, and 2. they initially sometimes fell apart while you sat in them. I remember a family friend visiting on our back patio and falling to the ground as they moved the chair and it came apart at the unglued/unbolted joints. Dad always had a fix though. For the asleep legs, I simply needed to grow about 6 inches. For the falling apart—and I still don’t know why glue or screws were against the rules on that model--another leather strap took care of the chair falling apart from underneath you. You have to hand it to my dad for the tinkering because he was figuring out what worked and what didn’t, with us as his test subjects. None of them ever made it beyond our family use at home, at least that I’m aware of, but he designed a really cool stool that folded and was easily stored in a small, narrow space, like in a closet or between a wall and a piece of furniture, or they could be hung flat against a wall. We lived with those stools for years. It’s cool to think we are the only family in the world who grew up with those stools. I still think that stool had potential, but it was a little tippy. At least to stand on. I bit the dust in our kitchen standing on one of those stools. In the end, my dad had the last laugh though. He now has an architectural furniture line by Loll Designs, made out of recycled plastic jugs. People buy them.
I highlight the furniture design because I think it might have always been the final piece to my dad’s realization of his architectural hope for himself as an extension of Finnish design.
Named for the fusion of art and technology, the Artek furniture company grew out of Aalto’s mid-20th-century furniture designs. For a boutique architectural furniture brand from a small country, it still holds the design world’s attention with their long-standing classic, bent-wood design furniture. Its influences can be seen even by a mere novice like me in Swedish mega discount home furniture producer, IKEA, and other furnishings for the masses here in Finland. But even walking into furniture stores that don’t carry Aalto’s timeless upscale brand, the sofas, chairs, tables, and accessories across Finland reflect modern and post-modern sensibilities at a far greater rate than one would find in the American furniture market. Where you might find a corner or a few lines that might qualify as “architectural,” or “design” furniture in America, you’ll find the reverse in a Finnish store.
Architecture and furniture aren’t where it stops here either. Finns have made design an everyday living expectation with a rich base of mid-century glass, earthen wear, and textile designers.
Iitalla glass wear, dishwear, and cutlery are world renown for dramatic form and everyday function. Arabia earthen wear are a quality and standard in elegance and function that probably has found its way into your cupboard in copy-cat versions.
The most distinguished national design treasure that speaks basic Finnish design language to the world more than all others is Marimekko. Marimekko grew out of a homespun, mid-century textile, clothier, and printing effort by husband and wife duo, Viljo and Armi Ratia in 1951. Since their inception, Marimekko has captured and established the Finnish aesthetic in everyday living through colorful, simple design elements tied to Finnish nature and culture. It finds joy in the form and color of things all around us in the natural world, and spins them into things you can wear, hang on the walls, or sit with on the table. Nothing feels visually more every-day Finnish to me than Marimekko.
I grew up with Marimekko as our family’s Finnishness was nurtured in America. Irma’s Finland House in Virginia, Minnesota, is still alive and kicking, or at least it was about a year ago when I was in town. They kept us abreast of Finnish design in the ‘70s and ‘80s. My mother cherished Marimekko prints, made clothing for us as small children that clutched the Marimekko spirit. Today, Marimekko is Finland’s main fashion brand that is completely and simultaneously at odds with the ostentatious luxury items of fashion in the parlors of Paris, London, and 5th Avenue. Marimekko’s world of elegant, simple design emerged on the world stage when Jackie Kennedy bought 7 Marimekko dresses at once during John’s run for the presidency, then wore them in high-visibility places, like the campaign trail and the cover of Sports Illustrated.
While most Finns would probably consider Marimekko as high quality choices for everyone, today their boutiqueiness is creeping into the luxury item category, probably an inevitability in the throw-away fashion world that has evolved around it. But Marimekko items are still found in big box stores here, and even their textile standards have been relaxed in recent collaborations with Converse, Target stores, and Japanese cheap-fashion giant, Uni Qlo—Japan being home of several non-Finnish Marimekko designers. Unlike, say, Hermés, Gucci, or Louis Vuitton, Marimekko will always be rooted in a utilitarian marriage of function, form and nature. It didn’t ever come from nor cater to the rich. Marimekko brings design to the people and almost anyone can afford something Marimekko, even if it’s just a nice set of summer napkins for coffee and pulla with friends.
The neighborhood Marimekko boutique across from our apartment. Nice stuff.
Finnish design obviously goes much deeper than these marquee names. I would be going too far to attempt anything but the most rudimentary of qualitative analyses of it all. I would go so far as to say that the Finnish relationship with design is at once as deep, serious, and reverent, as it is whimsical, fun, natural, functional, and accessible.
We all land somewhere on a spectrum between total practicality and pure artistic aspiration. We gravitate towards our personal sensibilities with environment forming the rest. I think I have established that I am creative, though perhaps not artistic, and I wonder how much my creativity is environmental. I have considered what my life would be like if I hadn’t grown up with abstract toys, classical music playing in the background, living in and seeing daily a world of aesthetic order and human inspiration. I’m grateful for my parents instilling in me things I fought against as a child. I think of this often as a parent. In Finland, I wonder what daily interaction with a culture of great design has done for its citizens. I wonder how it will affect my kids.
As this blog has highlighted, Finland has evolved into a pretty good place for the modern human experience. Finns live reasonable, secure lives due in large part to the sensibilities they’ve gravitated towards as a people. It takes all kinds to create such a society. A national identity helps. A nation’s art and design may not be measurable in how its society functions or prospers, but I would argue, when that identity is stronger—when a nation appreciates an aesthetic that builds its identity—you end up with a more creative people and a stronger collective sense of who they are. When it fosters creativity, it can’t be bad. It’s the argument for support of the arts. Finns experience and have long experienced high design principles in their daily lives. They support artists too. While that may not be a critical measure in its success by social science standards, I can’t help but elevate the human experience here, at least in part, to the design ideals it has long held, and that it lives by to this day.