Olavi Hänninen

Who is Olavi Hänninen?

Olavi Hänninen was a Finnish designer and interior architect. Hänninen's design projects ranged from furniture to trams and church silverware, including total interior designs for many public facilities. His modernist designs included also tables and chairs, and he was well recognized for his work on the Palace Hotel interiors together with Antti Nurmesniemi and Olli Borg. Hänninen designed a renown plastic chair with metal structure for the hotel's cafe. In the 1970s his designs included the new Valmet Nr I trams for Helsinki City Transport.

Before starting his own design office in 1961, Hänninen worked at architect Viljo Revell's offices in the early 1950s, where one of his tasks was to design selected interiors for the Palace Hotel building completed in 1952. In 1957, Hänninen received a gold medal at the 11th Milan Triennale for his design of a dwelling exhibition in the Finnish Pavilion. In 1977 he received the State of Finland Award for Industrial Design. He was also an honorary member of the Finnish Association of Interior Architects. A book on Hänninen's life work, consisting of articles written by six Finnish experts on arts and design, was published in 2006.