Finnish Design: Myths & Moomins

26 September – 20 December 2026

Rare Moomin mugs and original figurines, on loan from Moomin Characters, join a new exhibition exploring the nature, mythology and folklore behind Finnish modernist design.

Finland’s landscape, its forests, lakes, ice and shifting northern light, has long shaped a national imagination in which the natural and the mythic are inseparable. Elemental forces, transformation, resilience and craft run through generations of Finnish storytelling, and those same qualities resurface in the country’s modern design: clarity, restraint, quiet strength, and a profound respect for the natural world.

This is the imagination behind Alvar Aalto’s flowing furniture and glassware, Tapio Wirkkala’s sculptural forms carved and blown to echo ice and snow, and Timo Sarpaneva’s glasswork for Iittala. It’s there too in Maija Isola’s bold nature-inspired prints for Marimekko, including her celebrated Unikko poppy design, and in Kaj Franck’s quietly radical approach to everyday tableware.

Rare original Moomin artefacts, on loan from Moomin Characters in Helsinki, join the exhibition, with Moomin merchandise available in the Collection shop… more details to follow soon.