PEKKA WICKSTRÖM

The pioneer of industrial design

Pekka Wikström's (1938 - 2011) career was one of the earliest ones that were focused quite clearly on industrial design. He was one of the pioneers of the business and he was stabilizing and modifying the status and professional image of industrial designers. Wikström tells that in the beginning of his career the designer was invited to projects at the stage when they had to ”make a horse head out of a head that looked like a cow”.

Wikström graduated as a metal artist at Art institute in 1964. Wikström started the designer's work already during his studies at Olli Kuusi's architect office and Oy Slev Ab's household factory. When hospital and laboratory instruments started developing in the change of 1970s,Wikström became one of the pioneers of instrument design. From the beginning of 1970s to the year of 1992, Pekka Wikström had his own design agency that operated as the "home base" of many starting designers. For example Jukka Vaajakallio and Jorma Pitkonen started their career there.