Textile materiality and modern identity within Finnish homes of the 1930s–40s

Kirjoittajat

• Daniele Burlando University of Helsinki
• Päivi Fernström University of Helsinki https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0659-794X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37449/ennenjanyt.160996

Avainsanat:

textiles, Finland, Modernism, dwellings, interior design, handweaving, taste education

Abstrakti

This essay investigates textile materiality within dwellings as a tool for modern-identity negotiation. By focusing on social and lifestyle modernization in 1930s-40s Finland, the text identifies the role of Modernist architects, interior designers, and textile designers as debaters of modern textile commodities, presenting new material on relevant textile designers such as Dora Jung, Marga Tikkanen, and Aino Marsio-Aalto. Instances of textile debate are highlighted within several media: publications, exhibitions, and retail displays. Textile home fittings are proposed as embodying the interaction of modernization and tradition within the nation-building process of modern Finland. Focus on textiles within the Modernist dwelling debate is supported by the Semperian conception of the textile medium as the original space definer, and by subsequent elaborations of this idea within architectural discourse leading to Modernism.