Artek

Artek was founded in Helsinki in 1935 by four young people, Alvar Aalto, Aino Aalto, Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl, with the aim of "not only selling furniture, but also promoting modernist culture through exhibitions and educational activities." Today, Artek's collection includes furniture, lighting fixtures and home accessories by Finnish masters and globally active architects and designers. They are all designed with functionality and poetic clarity. Inheriting the spirit of its founders, Artek continues to stand at the intersection of design, art and architecture today and pave the way for the future.
The company name Artek is a combination of "art" and "technology," keywords of the international modernist movement that emerged in the 1920s. Walter Gropius, one of the leaders of the modernist movement, famously stated in 1923 that "art and technology should be integrated." Modernism aimed to fuse these two fields and bring about new results. It was believed that technology could be refined by incorporating art, and that art could be made functional and practical through the power of technology. The founders of Artek also put the same idea into the company name.