An introduction to the work of Alvar Aalto, spanning his career from early to late.

1. Alvar Aalto

2. agenda
discuss midterm
3 questions were manually graded.
"pilotis" question: everyone got 2 points
"publication" question: everyone got 10 points
short answer: between 6 and 8 points depending upon the
quality of your response

3. BIG, Danish National Maritime Museum, completed 2013

12. compare: an
historical predecessor
at the Villa Savoye

17. how do architects draw from the past?
consider the case of Shigeru Ban and Alvar Aalto

18. Shigeru BAN, model for UPM pavilion, Milan Furniture Fair, 2007

24. waste material, label-making, UPM

25. Ban on "weak materials"
"I'm very interested in using weak materials. ...engineers
wish to make weak materials stronger and stronger.
I believe that the material doesn't need to be strong to
be used to build a strong structure.
The strength of the structure has nothing to do with the
strength
of the material.
We can make a building which withstands an earthquake
made of paper, as I did.
So the structural strength of the building has nothing to
do with the strength of the material."

26. can this material compete
with your cardboard tubes?
"Well, it's a matter of the criteria, what you're looking for
from the structure. Actually this material is naturally
waterproof and the paper tube we have to make waterproof,
we have to add chemicals to it. So it's different.
also the great advantage of this material is that you can
make different profiles.
Here we have a 'L' profile and also behind you there are
circular profiles. UPM can make any profile, the paper
tube I use is the round or square. it's more difficult to make a
different profile out of paper...
So this material is more flexible to make the different profiles
you would need. That's a great advantage."

27. on decorative materials
"Well, the nature of my architecture is ... I'm not interested in
decorative material.
I think if we designed a beautiful structure, the structure itself
is already ‘decoration’. We’re bringing natural light and
shadow inside the pavilion, that's the best decoration in
architecture /
in the history of architecture movement.
So any additional decoration is really not necessary!"

28. "Alvar Aalto through the
Eyes of Shigeru Ban"
2007 exhibition at the Barbican in
London

29. so, why did Ban get
interested in Aalto?
"The ultimate goal of architecture is
to create a paradise… every house,
every product of
architecture…should be a fruit of our
endeavour to build an earthly
paradise for people."
—Alvar Aalto, 1957

30. "God
created
paper for the
purpose of
drawing
architecture
on it..."
—Alvar Aalto

31. Alvar Aalto (1898-1976)

32. map showing
Finland in red

33. "International style": Mexico, Brazil, Finland

34. young Aalto
Finland became an independent republic in 1919, following
the turmoil of the Russian Revolution and a civil war.
Aalto graduated from Helsinki Institute of Technology (later
Helsinki University of Technology and now part of the Aalto
University).
1921 set up his first architectural practice in Jyväskylä,
Finland.
Traveled frequently to Europe with his wife and frequent
collaborator Aino Marsio, also an architect.

35. early commissions in
Finland
• Tapani Building (1929)
• Paimio Sanatorium (1932)
• co-founded Artek (furniture manufacturer still in business)
in 1935
• Aalto House and Studio (1936)
• created interior decor and glassware for Helsinki cafe
called the Savoy in 1937.
• Villa Mairea (1939)

36. Alvar AALTO
Tapani Building
Turku, Finland
1929

37. Tapani Building (1929)
• Commissioned 1927 by the Tapani construction
firm, which manufactured the standard precast
concrete units needed to build this apartment
block.
• Beams of standard width and wall units one foot
thick were all hollow in order to facilitate
installation of pipes, air ducts and electricity
wires.
• Variety of floorplans and living rooms with flexible
layouts.
• Aalto furnished some of the apartments with his
furniture. Some was made by the Thonet

38. Artek (1935)
founded by Aino and Alvar Aalto to manufacture textiles,
glassware and furniture from their designs

39. Alvar and Aino Aalto House,
Helsinki, Finland (1936)
In 1934, Aino and Alvar Aalto bought a piece of land in
Helsinki's Munkkiniemi neighborhood (Riihitie 20). Family
home and office completed in 1936.
Aalto's primary residence until his death in 1976
His second wife, Elissa, lived there until her death in 1994.
In 1998 ownership passed to the Alvar Aalto Foundation.
The home reopened as a museum in 2002.

40. Alvar and Aino Aalto House
Helsinki, Finland
1936
Family home and office space.

57. Visit the Aalto House
http://www.alvaraalto.fi/aaltohouse.htm

58. Savoy Restaurant
Helsinki, Finland (1937)

59. Fpr a new restaurant opening in Helsinki, Alvar Aalto together with his wife Aino
designed custom furnishings and fixtures. The restaurant was located on the top floor
of the new Industrial Palace building.

61. Savoy Vase
Vases were placed on
every table and allowed
flowers to be arranged in
unusual, more individual
ways.

62. Villa Mairea (1939)
Noormarkku, Finland
• "an experimental house" commissioned by Aalto's
business partners in Artek, Harry and Maire Gullichsen.
• Aalto was given very free rein and a large budget.
• located in Noormarkku, Finland: a rural retreat for the
owners
• after foundation was poured, Aalto profoundly altered the
design to create a single, flowing open space for living,
entertaining, and display of art.

63. wooded, rural site

64. house among the pines

65. site plan showing
house, pool and
sauna

66. front facade

67. front facade with entrance portico

70. entrance,
detail of stonework
and bamboo posts

71. custom front door
with cast-bronze pull

72. interior, entrance with staircase

73. staircase detail

74. staircase detail

75. staircase elevation

76. entry with view into living space

77. interior with hearth
visible in background

78. detail of hearth

79. elevation and plan of fireplace

81. more living room

82. interior library

83. interior dining area with hearth and built-ins

84. detail kitchen hearth

85. Maire Gullichsen's
studio on the first floor

86. interior office space

88. sitting room

89. interior garden room

90. detail of garden room

91. east wing facade

92. courtyard facade

93. courtyard with pool and sauna

94. entrance to sauna

95. interior of sauna

96. exterior
landscaping with
gate

97. why the luxury house
matters
"The general idea seems to be that there is a distinct
contrast between small-scale mass-produced housing
on the one hand and residential buildings designed
according to the needs of the individual, on the other.
Special one-off houses have thus, in a way, been left
outside the trend which has made the production of
small dwellings the main social issue. ...One-off
architectural commissions can be used as experimental
laboratories where things can be done which are not
possible with today’s methods of mass production, but
which will gradually spread further and become
available to one and all as production methods
advance."
—Aino and Alvar Aalto, writing in Arkkitehti

98. gaining international
recognition
• Finnish Pavilion, Paris World's Fair, Paris, France, 1937
• "Aalto: Architecture and Furniture" exhibition at MoMA,
1938
• Finnish Pavilion, New York World’s Fair, NY, USA, 1939
• This building in particular gave Aalto an international
reputation.

99. Finnish Pavilion, 1935
Paris, France
The building was designed on the theme of "forest."
This highlighted a major industry in Finland.
Visual elements:
• enormous photographs of forest landscapes
• tree trunks, assembled to form screens or scattered
around the pavilion as accents

100. Alvar AALTO, Finnish Pavilion, Paris World's Fair, 1937, Paris, France

101. Aalto, Finnish Pavilion, 1935, section showing irregular terrain of the site

102. Aalto, Finnish Pavilion, 1935, axonometric

103. Aalto, Finnish Pavilion, 1935, plan for pavilion and landscaping

104. Aalto, Finnish Pavilion, 1935, plan for upper storey

105. Aalto, Finnish Pavilion, 1935, interior garden

106. interior with displays of architectural photos and products

107. Forest motif at the Finnish Pavilion, Paris, 1937

108. exhibition "Aalto: Architecture and
Furniture," at MoMA, NYC, 1938

109. Alvar AALTO
Finnish Pavilion, New York
World's Fair, NYC
1939

110. Shigeru Ban studio, conceptual model of Aalto's Finnish Pavilion for NY World's Fair

111. drawing of
Finnish Pavilion

112. Finnish Pavilion
viewed in the other direction

113. Finnish Pavilion, with projection
booth for multimedia displays
display of propellers mounted
to ceiling
and cafe/restaurant

114. Aalto installing
product displays at the
Finnish Pavilion, NYC

115. crafting the product
displays
"An exhibition should be what in the early days it used
to be, a general store: in which all possible objects are
grouped together in a dense display—whether it be fish,
cloth or cheese. Therefore in this pavilion I have
attempted to provide the densest possible concentration
of display, a space filled with wares, next to and above
and beneath each other, agricultural and industrial
products often just a few inches apart. It was no easy
work—composing the individual elements into one
symphony."
—Alvar Aalto, quoted in Karl Fleig, Alvar Aalto, 130

117. late works
Baker House (1948)
Maison Carré (1959)
Neue Vahr, Bremen, Germany (1962)

118. Baker House (1948)
MIT, Cambridge, MA
dormitory for MIT students
unusual layout to maximize river views
considered an unusually good example of student housing

119. ground floor plan
typical upper floor plan

120. Aalto, Baker House, MIT, aerial view

123. dorm room with furnishings

124. Maison Carré (1959)
located in Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, France
for French art dealer Louis Carré and his wife, who wished
to build an important villa on a large plot Carré had
acquired near the village of Bazoches, with a view of the
nearby Forêt de Rambouillet.
Aalto designed the house, furnishings, and landscaping of
entire property

125. Aalto, general view, Maison Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, France, 1

126. Aalto, general view, Maison Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, France, 1959

127. Aalto, living room toward entry hall
Maison Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, France, 1959

128. Neue Vahr Apartment
Building Bremen, Germany
(1962)
1962 Bremen, Germany.
22-story apartment building consists of one- and two-room
apartments all wedge-shaped, collected together in a fan
oriented westwards. Ground floor was office space
connected to a small commercial area.

129. Aalto on scale
"One of the most difficult architectural problems is the
shaping of the building's surroundings to the human scale. In
modern architecture where the rationality of the structural
frame and the building masses threaten to dominate, there is
often an architectural vacuum in the leftover portions of the
site. It would be good if, instead of filling up this vacuum with
decorative gardens, the organic movement of people could
be incorporated in the shaping of the site in order to create
an intimate relationsip between Man and Architecture."

130. plan of the Neue Vahr building