Iittala City

Iittala City

In 2012, Finland’s largest department store Stockmann tasked me to create an installation to celebrate Helsinki’s World Design Capital year. The result was a futuristic city was built entirely from Iittala’s crockery and tableware, two metric tonnes of them in total.

The city featured a number of different buildings with the tallest — Aalto Tower built from the eponymous designer’s iconic Savoy vases — rising to three meters. Constructing the buildings proved surprisingly simple, as basically the only material needed in addition to the crockery was common clear office tape.

The installation received an enthusiastic welcome from Stockmann’s customers and was displayed for an extended period of almost four months. During this time the city underwent alterations to reflect changing seasons as well as Stockmann’s semiannual Crazy Days campaign.

Dusk arrives in Iittala City. All photos by Chikako Harada.
Aalto Tower, the tallest building in the city, soared to three meters.
Alvar Aalto’s Savoy vases interleaved with water-cut aluminum plates.
Stockmann had, naturally, a store in Iittala City, too.
An apartment complex built from square Teema plates.
The fanciful edifice celebrated the new Koko collection.
When Christmas arrived one of the city’s neighbourhoods was redeveloped into Santa’s Mountain from whence he was to fly off on a hot air balloon.
A denizen of Iittala city in 1:20 scale.
A guard on duty at Boreal Palace.
Lovers’ tryst atop Aalto Tower.