After completing an apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker in Basel, Werner Blaser travelled to Scandinavia in 1949. As well as visiting Carl Larsson and Bruno Mathsson, he worked as an intern for Alvar Aalto in Helsinki. Among other things, he was responsible for cataloguing Artek furniture and furnishing the cargo ship "Fintrader". His passion for architecture led Blaser to the Institute of Design in Chicago in 1951. In the architecture department of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), he took a course in photography, among other things, which brought him into contact with Mies van der Rohe.