Riihimäki glass ( fi, Riihimäen lasi) was a reputed
glass
Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling ( quenching ...
company in
Riihimäki
Riihimäki (literally "Drying barn hill") is a town and municipality in the south of Finland, about north of Helsinki and southeast of Tampere. An important railway junction is located in Riihimäki, since railway tracks from Riihimäki lead to ...
,
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
, in operation from 1910, when it was founded by Mikko Adolf Kolehmainen, to 1990. Their production ranged from basic to high quality glass ornaments, which are now sought after as collectibles, especially some of their vases. Riihimäki products are readily available via collectors' web sites, as are their values.
It produced everyday glassware and
art glass until 1976 and
cut glass
Cut glass or cut-glass is a technique and a style of decorating glass. For some time the style has often been produced by other techniques such as the use of moulding, but the original technique of cutting glass on an abrasive wheel is still u ...
until 1977. After that, it made only machine produced glass and plastic packaging.
Ahlstrom Corporation purchased the company in 1980, and closed the Riihimäki plant in 1990.
Among the designers associated with Riihimäki in its early decades were , ,
Gunnel Nyman, and after 1945, (1959–1976),
, , (1954–1955),
Timo Sarpaneva
Timo Tapani Sarpaneva (31 October 1926 – 6 October 2006) was an influential Finnish designer, sculptor, and educator best known in the art world for innovative work in glass, which often merged attributes of display art objects with utilitaria ...
, and (1968–1976), as well as
Helena Tynell. It was
Nanny Still who joined the design team by winning the Nordic art competition the firm held in 1949.
Finnish Glass Museum
Since 1980, the Finnish Glass Museum has been housed in then a glass factory building where Riihimäki Glass started a manufacturing blown glass in 1921. The original owner of that facility was Paloheimo since 1914, which financially supported Riihimäki Glass at its latter stage of operation. The manufacturing at that factory shifted from glass to plastic packaging, then to screen printing.
Footnotes
Note
References
Further reading
* Andy McConnell (2006) ''20th-century Glass''. Miller's Guides.
* Riihimäen Lasi Oy 1910–1960, Riihimäen lasi 1960, p.172. Historiikin kirjoittanut V. Länsiluoto.
*
* Hoffrén, Jouko ; Penttilä Kalevi. (1979) ''Riihimäen historia I''
istory of Riihimäki I pp.347–359,904–921. Karisto, Hämeenlinna.
External links
Glass objects made by Riihimäki glassDesignlasi.com
Glassmaking companies of Finland
Riihimäki
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