Vibrant story of Pop Art glass designer Tamara Aladin
In the late 1950s, a young flight attendant Tamara Aladin from the Finnish airline Aero visited the office of the Riihimäki glass factory. She brought her sketches of a cognac glass designed for women, which she believed was lighter and more elegant compared to those then produced in Scandinavia.
Although she had no knowledge of glass production, one of her friends had recently complained about the lack of feminine cognac glasses. Aladin found this interesting and created the sketches.
The representatives of the glass factory reviewed the sketches and invited the young woman for an interview. Thus began the unexpected journey of designer Tamara Aladin, one of the pioneers of the Scandinavian Pop Art style in interior design.
Naturally, she did not come to the glass factory entirely unprepared: Aladin had received a good art education. However, after graduation, she began working for the newly opened Helsinki-Moscow-Helsinki airline route.
Tanelinkulma house in Hamina. Photo MolnaVintage
In the center of the picturesque old town of Hamina in southeastern Finland stands a large wooden house, Tanelinkulma, built in 1889 in the neo-Renaissance style by architect Waldemar Aspelin. By Finnish standards, it is almost a wooden manor. Here, at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, was the family home of the Aladin merchant family.
In which in 1932 Tamara was born, who would bring the Aladin name to international fame.
In 1959, Tamara became the youngest designer at the massive Riihimäki glass factory. Unlike most Scandinavian designers, she began creating items (mainly vases) in bright colors. At that time, the Pop Art style, with its minimalist forms and intense "chemical" colors, was just becoming fashionable in Scandinavia.
The main consumer of Pop Art in glass was not Finland or even its Scandinavian neighbors: most items were exported to Germany.
Aladin regularly met with representatives of the factory's German partners, and together they discussed and developed new projects. I believe the final result was influenced not only by the preferences of German buyers and the Pop Art trend but also by Aladin's personal taste—her vibrant, lively nature was reflected in these works.
More than half of Riihimäki's glass items in the 1960s and 1970s were designed by Aladin. However, at the time, it was not customary to sign items, so even today, researchers of Scandinavian glass sometimes discover unknown works by the designer.
In 1976, the economic situation of the factory deteriorated, and they had to abandon the manual production of items by glassblowers and designers (up to that point, Scandinavian designers often worked alongside the craftsmen).
Aladin did not seek new employment but began to lead a peaceful life in the suburbs of her native Hamina, in her own wooden house with a stable and a beloved garden. The windows of the house overlooked a romantic sea bay. She resumed her favorite hobby, horseback riding, and, as eyewitnesses recall, could ride into town from home.
Tamara Aladin passed away in 2019 and was buried in the family’s chapel-mausoleum, built in the rather rare for Nordics Byzantine style in 1898. That same year, the Glass museum on the site of the Riihimäki factory organized a memorial exhibition of her works, which I happily visited.
And what about the elegant cognac glasses for women? Thanks in part to Aladin, they appeared in the 1960s.
More of Pop Art style glass can be found on our website.
First published in AD magazine