 Maire and Hahl had the idea of founding an "avant-garde" art gallery in Helsinki to act as a focus of progressive culture, and in due course this became ‘ARTEK’, now world-famous as manufacturers and distributors of Aalto's furniture and glassware.The Gullichsens believed in the possibility of a social utopia based on technological progress, and found in Alvar Aalto a designer who shared their ideals and could give them convincing architectural expression.Aalto and his first wife Aino had undertaken various projects for the Ahlström Company, including workers' housing, social facilities, and the celebrated Sunila Plant, completed in 1939, but it was in the Villa Mairea itself that the character of their utopian vision was demonstrated most fully.