DesignerFinnish
Esko Pajamies
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Esko Lauri Alvari Pajamies was born on 20 August 1931 in Helsinki. He trained at the Academy of Applied Arts, graduating as an interior architect in 1954, and set up his own studio in 1961. His timing was well-chosen: Finland's postwar consumer economy was expanding, and domestic manufacturers were hungry for designers who could translate European modernism into living rooms and public spaces.
Pajamies worked across several of the country's leading furniture producers. At Asko he developed what became his most enduring piece: the Bonanza sofa, launched in 1965. Named after the American television series that was running at the time, the design broke with convention by exposing the wooden frame rather than hiding it under upholstery. The wide flat armrests were wide enough to hold a drink, which made the sofa as practical as it was modern. He also designed plastic furniture for public spaces alongside Eero Aarnio for Asko, Merivaara, and the Upo plastics factory - work that put both men at the centre of Finnish Pop-era design.
The commission that best defined Pajamies' range was the Hopeasiipi (Silver Wing) collection, created in 1968-69 for the brand-new Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, which opened in 1969. The rotating upholstered armchairs, mounted on trumpet bases, had to perform well under sustained public use while reading as architecturally coherent in a large civic terminal. That the chairs still trade actively at auction more than fifty years later suggests they succeeded on both counts.
From 1965 onward Pajamies also worked closely with Lahden Lepokalusto, where he produced the Polar lounge chair in the 1960s and the Pele armchair in the 1970s. The Pele, with its low-slung upholstered shell and exposed frame, became one of his most sought-after designs outside Finland. He continued evolving his approach through the Koivutaru series in 1974, which used bent domestic birch, and the Prima Ballerina rocking chair from 1962. In 1979 the Finnish state awarded him the State Art Prize for his contribution to design. Away from work he played jazz trumpet, a detail that surfaces occasionally in dealer notes but has no particular bearing on the furniture.
Pajamies died on 26 September 1990 in Elounta, Greece. On the Nordic auction market his work appears primarily through Bukowskis Helsinki, Hagelstam & Co, and Stockholms Auktionsverk's Finnish and German branches. Of the 28 items tracked on Auctionist, the dominant categories are chairs and armchairs, sofas, and tables - essentially the core Asko vocabulary. Top recorded prices cluster around the Bonanza series: a pair of Bonanza armchairs reached 8,521 SEK and a three-seat Bonanza sofa sold for 7,990 SEK. The Hopeasiipi and Pele models fetch comparable sums when they appear. Prices remain accessible, placing Pajamies firmly within the collector-friendly tier of postwar Finnish design.