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 in 1948 joined Aalto to work on the Baker House dormitory at M.I.T.

Hammarstrom decided to stay in the U.S. and shortly after the M.I.T. project, married fellow Finn Marianne Strengell, whom he had known in Helsinki. Previously married to sculptor Charles Dusenbury, she was head of the weaving department at Cranbrook Art Academy from 1937-1961, and a major figure in textile design and weaving. At Cranbrook, Hammarstrom joined Eero Saarinen in his architectural firm and from 1949-1954 was in charge of interiors and furnishings of the General Motors Technical Center, the majority of the textiles designed by Strengell. He left the firm in 1954 but rejoined it again in 1962 at its new location of Hamden, Conn. During this time he was in charge of the interior space redesign of the 36-story CBS office building in New York City, and the design of a Bloomfield Hills, Mich. residence for Loja Saarinen, wife of Eliel.

Along with his wife Strengell, Hammarstrom was part of a U.N. field study tour in Japan, from 1951-1953, where he studied the manufacture of bamboo and rattan furniture without power tools, and in the Philippines, where he was an adviser in the design and manufacture of rattan furniture. He wrote a report, “Design and Manufacture of Wood and Rattan Furniture in the Philippines,” which is included in the collection. He also worked on similar projects in Jamaica.

Hammarstrom was the architect for several churches including the contemporary designs of the Chapel of St. James the Fisherman in Wellfleet, Mass., for which he received the A.I.A. award for design, and St. Anselm’s Mission Church in Lafayette, Calif. The Hammarstroms purchased property in Wellfleet and in 1952 he designed their home, where they at first vacationed, then beginning in the 1970s, lived full-time. The design was lauded for its “one with nature” feel, built without removing one tree from the property, and was filled with Hammarstrom’s bamboo and rattan furniture and Strengell’s richly textured rugs and textiles. He designed over 50 residences, the majority in Wellfleet and on the East coast, including a Wellfleet summer residence for Lily Saarinen, first wife of Eero Saarinen. Today, several of these houses, including Hammarstrom’s, Lily Saarinen's, and one designed for Laszlo Tisza, fall under the protection of the Cape Cod Modern House Trust.

The Hammarstroms made extensive study tours throughout the world; many slides of this travel are in the Strengell collection. They lived in Wellfleet until their deaths. Strengell died in 1998 and Hammarstrom on December 10, 2002.