Abstract Olav Hammarstrom, architect and furniture designer, was born July 16, 1906, in Heinola, Finland. He received degrees from the University of Technology and the Athenaeum in Helsinki and worked for several leading architectural firms in Finland. He managed the firm of Alvar Aalto while Aalto was in the U.S. and, after joining him to work on the Baker House dormitory at M.I.T. in 1948, he decided to stay in the U.S. and married fellow Finn Marianne Strengell, head of the weaving department at...

Abstract Wallace McMahon Mitchell was born on October 9, 1911 in Detroit, Michigan to Arthur Z. and Edith McMahon Mitchell. He was a respected painter, textile designer, geometric abstractionist, and a Cranbrook Academy of Art (CAA) graduate student (’35). He later served at the Academy as a painting, and arts and crafts instructor; registrar; director; and then president until his death in 1977. The collection contains the papers of Mitchell and his family during his years at Cranbrook. Included are...