The designers who built Arabia: Kaipiainen, Procopé, Tomula

Line up enough Arabia and you notice something: somebody drew this.

Mass-produced ware that still carries the hand of a maker. There is a reason. This factory had a room inside it for artists.

Arabia's Art Department

In 1932 Kurt Ekholm was appointed art director, and the following year the Art Department (taideosasto) was formally established.

It sat inside the factory but apart from the production lines. Artists worked freely, and what came out of that room developed alongside product design rather than beneath it.

Birger Kaipiainen, Rut Bryk, Toini Muona, Kyllikki Salmenhaara, Friedl Kjellberg and Michael Schilkin all worked there — much of the roll-call of Finnish ceramics.

Speaking in 1947, Ekholm remembered that when he arrived the department was housed in "a porter's low cottage in a wooden building, the old Arabia office room". Internationally recognised work came out of it.

Birger Kaipiainen (1915–1988)

The one who refused to reduce.

Born in Pori in 1915, he graduated from the central school of applied arts in 1937 and joined Arabia at twenty-two, staying roughly fifty years.

Post-war Nordic design moved towards stripping ornament away. Kaipiainen did not follow. For him the form of a vessel was a place to carry a picture, and the picture was the point.

His defining work is Paratiisi (1969), which grew out of the wall relief Orvokkimeri made for the Montreal world's fair — a fair piece transposed onto domestic plates.

Professor's title in 1977. He kept coming to the factory afterwards and died in 1988. In Japan he is usually called "the king of decoration".

Ulla Procopé (1921–1968)

The one who chased usable form.

Born in Helsinki in 1921. She graduated in 1948 and joined Arabia's hand-painting department, moving to model and decoration two years later.

What distinguishes her work is that she designed both shape and pattern: Liekki (1957–1978), Valencia (1960–2002), Anemone, Ruska (1961–1999), Meri. All of them ran a long time, which is another way of saying they were easy to use.

Diploma of honour at the 1957 Milan Triennale; gold medals at ceramics exhibitions in Sacramento in 1962 and 1963.

She died in Tenerife on 21 December 1968. Forty-seven years old; the cause was silicosis — an occupational disease from years of silica dust in the factory.

Ruska went on being made for thirty-one years after she was gone.

Put Kaipiainen and Procopé side by side and you see the range of this factory: someone who took decoration as far as it would go, and someone who did the same with usability, in the same building.

Esteri Tomula

The one who kept drawing plants.

She graduated from the school of applied arts in Helsinki in 1947 and joined Arabia the same year, working as a decorator until 1984 — some forty years.

What she drew was almost entirely botanical: garden flowers, roadside weeds, forest berries, the trees behind the spices.

Her defining work, Botanica (1978–1989), is a series of wall plates with each plant's Latin name written underneath in her own hand. Closer to record-keeping than decoration. Rosa, with roses, and a group of forest berries followed.

She left a great deal of everyday ware too: Omena (1959–1975), Pastoraali, and the Kanel, Ingefära, Kardemumma and Nejlika spice pots. Tomula is, in fact, the designer we have taken in most of.

Collecting by designer

Choosing by series is the usual approach, but following a maker is an interesting one.

Collect Procopé and you get a quiet, usable table. Kaipiainen gives you pieces that decide a table on their own. Tomula means plants accumulating season by season.

Same factory, completely different faces. That is what makes Arabia interesting.