Savoy vase
The vase with a wavy outline that looks like a lake seen from above.
Alvar Aalto designed the vase for a competition held by the Karhula-Iittala glassworks in 1936, ahead of the Paris World's Fair of 1937. It was named after the Savoy restaurant in Helsinki, which Alvar and Aino Aalto furnished.
The form is often read as a Finnish lake or an Inuit woman's leather breeches – Aalto himself said little about it. The vase has been made by Iittala ever since.
Materials: Mouth-blown glass
Manufacture: Blown into a mould; first moulds of wood, later of cast iron.
The outline is free and wavy, never symmetrical.
The walls are straight; the form is seen from above.
Small differences between pieces, because each vase is mouth-blown.