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The year 2005, two years before the launch of the 2^nd Cycle project, marked a turning point for the company as Mirkku Kullberg became the managing director with an agenda to increase profitability and create a new public image for the company. Such an effort was necessary as the company was struggling with a public image that did not reflect the company’s foundational principles; it was losing its international mar-ket share to a considerable degree. What shaped Kullberg’s (2016) managerial and creative actions, including 2^nd Cycle, appears to be her thoughts on the company’s original identity:

I think that Artek was a kind of window to the international world. It was like in a way importing ideas to Finland but it also exporting. Easily people think that it is equal to Alvar Aalto, but at the end when it was founded, it was so much more.

It was really a cultural hub. It was about art. It was really about propaganda like the manifesto states already. Propaganda means educating Finnish taste, educating Finns to see other cultures and other kind of arts and crafts people’s works that they had already started to sell when Artek was at a very early stage. It was a kind of movement. I always keep saying Artek is not about furniture selling company or marketing company. It is a movement, it is about way of thinking.

Nevertheless, Artek seemed to have drifted far from these values. Kullberg (2016) explains the conditions in 2005 as a loss of contact with social dynamics:

Artek did not have a dialogue with the society anymore. It was like the threshold getting to the Artek store was already high. People were coming and viewing products on the pedestal. But, at the end, that was never Artek […] Artek was

among all kind of people, buying, investing kind of products like Artek did not have anything about social class. It wanted you to save money for those products. I know people who buying tea trolley saving money for that for three years. But it is a choice. But, during the years [by 2005], Artek had been becoming very closed society and not international anymore. Artek was super international during foundation time […] They were connected to world-class artists, world-class architects. There was like a society community around the world who understands the thinking. So, I think that Artek became so difficult to reach and difficult to understand that it would have been started to get dusty. It did not communicate. It did not have this radicalism at all that was stated in the manifesto. It became also boring. If it is a company that has an educational role, it cannot be boring.

Why did Artek lose its contact with social dynamics that had been the core brand value since the foundation? It is difficult to produce a definite response. However, I may argue that the traditional design heroism, transmitted by the design hero and creative genius myths, seems to fail to embrace emerging consumer aspirations and needs of the twenty-first-century Finland. Accordingly, the lack of an in-depth dialogue with society may demonstrate how the continuous contemporaneity of permanent valorisation in design may cease when it lacks a proper management.

Actually, when we go back to the 1980s, we can already note an elitist public per-ception of Artek. Parko (1984: 105–106) states, for example, that Artek’s standard models “acquired an air of expensive exclusivity, perhaps because the original ways of making them and high quality have been preferred to developing production techniques.” As Parko continues, she claims that Artek’s foundational “social and aesthetic radicalism” had been replaced by an “established reputation” and status as a “national institution” by the 1980s. This indicates that the sense of a loss of foun-dational radicalism noted by Kullberg has a deep background, going back decades.

Certainly, such a loss has had economic repercussions. During the 1990s, for ex-ample, Artek’s profitability decreased to such a degree that the families of founders sold a majority stake in Artek to the Swedish investment company, Proventus AB in 1992.

In 2005, Kullberg’s most significant move has been reclaiming the status of

“cultural producer” in the new light of the 2000s. Through the introduction of a new brand philosophy, Artek’s origin myth has been revisited through an attempt to re-vitalise the foundational identity of Artek. Kullberg, to this end, created a movement inside the company that included even retired employees. She (2016) explains why she chose such a method, speaking of a deep exploration into the company’s history instead of following the trends of the new millennium, which could have been less risky in terms of achieving economic success:

Kullberg: This kind of silent information is so important. I think that if you do not understand the perspective from where the company is coming, you start talking

the language which is trendy or today’s [only]. Artek was not the brand that could follow the trendy. It needed the perspective for the past. And I needed to understand from where the company was coming and only way you can get it is through the people who had the connection. You know, people who worked with Marie-Gullichsen, worked [also] with me through the whole way until 2014. The stories…

we needed to refresh the stories.

Author: Story of the company or customers?

Kullberg: I think both. We needed to understand because at the end, there is so many international clients, international people, individuals, companies who had been connected to Artek. And they were not always documented. Actually, it was kind of very blurry information about. And we needed to dig deeper to get all this information. And people [retirees] knew them.

On the side that was visible to the public, the attempt at revitalisation was imple-mented by means of a marketing program that addressed the collective mind of society, but that also referred to the company’s foundational manifesto (see figure 4.23). As this new philosophy translated Aalto’s humanist ideals into a contemporary

understanding of sustainability, the 2^nd Cycle project was launched in 2007 as an anti-fashion public relations campaign shaped largely by Kullberg.

The project started with a buy-back-for-resale program of the Stool 60, as well as its chair versions, such as Chair 65, 66, and 69, a campaign that engaged public buildings, flea markets, and private owners. The collected stools were put back on the market with a comprehensive marketing agenda highlighting the material qualities of aging. The beauty of patina is communicated in a way championing product lon-gevity with a further emphasis on increasing awareness for “conscious consuming”.

Kullberg (2016) explains why they have chosen a non-consuming philosophy as the focal point in the revitalisation of Artek’s original principles:

I have been struggling in general about consumption and about how much object we need now in our world […] You know, we were poor people, Finland is a very young independent nation. At the end, if you think about, if you do not have a lot of money, when you buy products, you invest in. When people were buying Artek products in the 1930s, they were investing, they were not consuming products. Our generation is a kind of spoiled generation because we started to consume things. We were easily consuming copies. We were consuming, buying, and building our brand identities and individual identities through products. Of course, Artek in the past was a statement for people who are buying Artek, a sort of intellectual statement:

I know what I am consuming, what I am buying, what I am investing in […]

Artek needed to state something which has to do with education [in a] propagandist way, manifesting something.

In this manifestation, the company achieved a channel to align its brand explicitly with higher ethical values of environmental consciousness. On the website for 2^nd Cycle, for example, the products are directly associated with sustainability, where the project concept is shown as the outcome of the company’s “environmental strategy” with an aim of increasing awareness for “conscious consuming” (see figures 4.24 and 4.25).

The 2^nd Cycle project focused on raising public awareness regarding the physical endurance of Artek furniture as well as to capitalise on the company’s distinctive values. These reflected the accumulating collective experience gathered by means of specific production and consumption processes that have carried on continuously over

Figure 4.23:

Marketing of the foundational principles. In October 2005, the Helsingin Sanomat’s cover page hosts Artek’s ad celebrating the 70^th anniversary of the company with the Artek manifesto at the centre and explanations of the company’s operations and how they are based on the manifesto.

the course of decades. Despite this clear result, when Artek started to collect furniture pieces, the company did not really know what the outcome would be (Kullberg 2016):

At the beginning, you know, it was very difficult to understand what would be the business logic of doing these things [collecting furniture pieces]. I did not have a clear understanding how to do it. I had the intuitive feeling that we are doing something very different and we are creating, generating a movement in this whole thing. When I first talked about the idea internally at Artek, people started to think that this is a marketing gig. I was concerned about this as I never thought about marketing campaign, it was about changing the total mind set.

When you start buying things back which do not have an equal price or value, the condition of those products are very different… Some are painted several times, which are old and dodgy, but at the end, the thing is […] you get so emotionally touched on those pieces. You see the patina that gives you a perspective and gives you trust for future. 2^nd Cycle was a statement about something stays, something has long lasting value. If this product [was] born twenty five years ago and still here, obviously it will be here after twenty five years as well. In this insecure world that we are living, products can state those things. It is little bit like art. But I never wanted 2^nd Cycle to be like only for connoisseurs or collectors […] An opportunistic business idea was completely out of question.

Figures 4.24 and 4.25: Marketing images for the 2^nd Cycle project presenting stackable Stool 60 pieces, demonstrating their patina of age.

Despite the lack of a clear idea, the excitement for the project in its early days is remarkable. Kullberg (2016) remembers her commitment to the project as follows:

When we were buying from flea markets, second-hand markets and auctions, wherever, we were driving hundreds and hundreds kilometres around Finland. I was driving and the kids were like ‘again, another weekend? We are just chasing these things’ and I was like ‘yes, yes, yes, we go now… this will be good one day.

The thoughts that accompanied those early days was not about a big marketing show.

The early attempts started with the idea that second-hand Aalto furniture should regain the value that it deserves:

The basic idea is that through this action, buying them back as many as possible, we were able to re-evaluate the second-hand pieces on the right value. So, meaning that, Aalto’s chair at a flea market cannot cost ten Euros. It is a wrong value, because it is not about that we would be needing to earn two hundred Euros, but it is the same value as a new one, or at least the same or little bit more depending on how it has been aging. The beauty comes from this patina. So, it was more like a movement than an opportunistic business action.

Figure 4.26: Artek’s composite-material pavilion at the Milan Furniture Fair in 2007.

The international announcement of the project took place at the Artek pavilion during the Milan Furniture Fair in 2007. The pavilion itself was constructed by means of a prefabricated mountable unit system made of an ecologically innovative wood-plastic composite material, architecturally manifesting Artek’s commitment to sustainability. In the months that followed, the same pavilion was reconstructed in Helsinki and Miami (see figure 4.26).

However, during the preparation stage for the fair, Artek had no idea that they were going to present the collected pieces at the fair. Actually, the pieces at that stage did not even have a name to be referred to. Kullberg (2016) remembers how the pavilion and exhibition was formed (see figures 4.27 and 4.28).

Figure 4.27: The same pavilion was reconstructed later at Design Miami. The pavilion at Design Miami featured re-collected 2^nd Cycle objects.

Figure 4.28: The piled-up display, as if the chairs were stored with no intention as to being part of the show, is reminiscent of today’s display approach at the 2^nd Cycle store.

We were so engaged with the Pavilion project. In January, I was supposed to be with Tom Dixon introducing products.⁴³ But, we all came to conclusion that we do not have products that we want to show. They were not at a design stage that we could be able to show [in fair] and we would be stating that these are exactly right, these are ready, but not only prototypes [...] So, at the end, it [2^nd Cycle] started from a problem. It started from a case to be solved. I needed to find a solution. I phoned Tom Dixon, I think, at the third week of January, and said: ‘Tom, we do not have anything new to show, what about we would be showing old Aalto products, saying that we buy them from flea markets, we state that it is 2^nd Cycle.

So, the collected old models finally achieved a project title and were determined to be presented in the international arena, to solve the problem of the lack of new finished design models that could be shown at the fair. However, this challenge, and its solution, generated a big international hit.

People were thrilled about that. I think especially thrilled about the connection with the Shigeru Ban’s pavilion. Because the pavilion was a statement of sustainability as an attitude. Not we would be saying that we are hundred per cent sustainable, but we were saying that we had the attitude. We were contacted by Microsoft, Sony and several companies, design people were contacting us, press was contacting, it was a bit confusing, I do not know how many lectures I have been doing since then about the 2^nd Cycle, why it was done. People wanted to hear because it was emotional, rational approach of this kind of thinking. Press was thrilled, it was early, because in 2007 […] design was very much connected to fashion, we were very trend oriented and sustainability was still like an untouched area. It was not appreciated yet, at consumer level.

The first business contact came from an impressive client, Microsoft:

We sold pieces to Microsoft Design Lab. And this was one of the first clients ever, immediately after the Milan. I would not be able close to deal but actually my boss told me, ‘Mirkku, we need to make this happen because this is a fantastic client’. I had no idea what kind of price to put on those products. Then I just decided like, okay, let’s just make this happen.

Following the big success at the Milan fair, the company promoted the project in close synchrony with its foundational principles, as an “educational activity” that aims to associate product longevity with responsible consumer behaviour. This

43 Tom Dixon was the art director of Artek.

“education” was not only constrained with marketing images. It was enveloped, rather, by Artek’s greater agenda of sustainability involving, for example, the sustainable material research that shaped the Milan pavilion.

The sustainability agenda was based on three interlinked pillars that are ethical, aesthetical, and ecological as Kullberg (2016) describes. The “triangle thinking” be-tween these aspects, for example, changed even how Artek hired its designers: “[…]

if we took a designer on board, we did not work on projects. We wanted to sort of create a process where these people will be involved in the company’s future. That was about ethics.”

The agenda also affected the approach towards the production. For example, the idea to buy the Korhonen factory, which was realised in 2014, started to occupy minds as early on in the years of Kullberg’s management:

We were considering at that time that we would be able to own the company which had been producing Aalto products since 1930s. That was part of the ownership of the whole chain. For being able to really follow the raw material, having the traceability for the raw material. And having the process in hands that we really could be controlling what is happening with waste, what is happening with all of these quality-not-so-good pieces. So, through this ecology we could be controlling ethical and aesthetical aspects in this whole triangle of thinking.

New design strategies have taken on the sustainability agenda too. For instance, the designer of the pavilion, internationally recognised architect Shigeru Ban, developed the same primarily recycled material for Artek’s 10-Unit System furniture group two years after the Milan fair in 2007 (see figure 4.29).

The design strategy marks parallel marketing projects with educational aspects such as the revitalisation of Enzo Mari’s famous 1974 project Autoprogettazione.

Artek (2010) put the self-assembled Sedia 1 Chair into production with a documen-tary marked with Mari’s motto: “design is only design if it communicates knowledge.”

As a part of the explicit alignment of products with higher ethical values relating to environmental consciousness, brand slogans that are presented on the product packaging of new production furniture and shopping bags manifest the anti-fashion brand philosophy. Slogans such as “timeless content inside”, “buy now keep forever”, or “one chair is enough” directly promote lasting values and product longevity in a package indicating a commitment to sustainability (see figures 4.30, 4.31, and 4.32).⁴⁴

Informed by the previously explained social nature of brands and the contribu-tion of heritage brands to nacontribu-tional community building as argued by Bulmer and

44 Artek is not the only Finnish company from the traditional sectors that promotes durability to gain competitive edge. Iittala uses anti-fashion slogans too, also celebrating durability as distinctive brand values. As in the Artek’s case, slogans are shown on product packages and shopping bags, such as “Timeless Design since 1881” and “lasting everyday design against throwawayism”.

Figure 4.29: In 2009, Artek presented the 10-Unit System furniture group at the Milan fair.

Figures 4.30 and 4.31: The anti-fashion slogans are presented on product packages and shopping bags.

These pictures were taken in the flagship store.