Alvar Aalto

Alvar Aalto, one of the Master Architects of the 20th century, has inspired and influenced architects all over the world.
We are very sorry to have promised you a lot of Aalto photos this week and only be able to deliver a few. Unfortunately, because of their age, the EC archive Aalto photos were in very bad shape. kk is going through their archives in Los Angeles later this month to look for better images.

In his summer house in Muuratsalo (1953), Finland Aalto used the courtyard wall for experimental purposes. He explored a variety of brick patterns and combinations to better understand the properties of the materials. This experiment is not merely technical, but also poetic.

Born 1898 in Kuortane, Finland, Aalto received his Architectural Diploma in 1921 from the Technical University of Helsinki.
Aalto was a Cosmopolitan but remained a child of Finland and its forests and lakes. His thinking was a combination of functionalism, his Finnish roots and the peasant traditions for the use of wood, stone and metal.
Humor and play was part of his creativity, “You must surprise people; make them wonder” was his motto.

From the 1920’s he was following the leading ideas of functionalism; using common sense and technology to built a new and better world.
He was friends with Corbusier, Mies and Gropius and was in close contact with the European modernists like Leger, Braque and Ernst.
But the worship of the purely rational was not enough for Aalto who felt that architecture had to integrate with nature. His buildings are deeply rooted in the landscape.

In one way Aalto stayed a functionalist all his life but he dug deeper into the unconscious giving his architecture several layers and dimensions. The fluid transition between inside and outside became a distinctive feature of Aalto’s design.
His concern for the topography, climate and national traditions makes him stand out in front of all the “pioneers” of the modern movement.
The Sanatorium at Paimio (1929-1933) was of major significance, Sigfried Gideon called it one of the three most important institutional buildings representative of the International Style.This view of the Sanatorium shows the technical service area of the complex. The elements here are characteristic og Aalto's idiosyncratic nature. The stairway surrounding the smoke stack, the fan like walls to the right and the fragmented building geometries are all pure Aalto.

The Finnish pavilion at the Paris World Fair 1937 and the Finnish pavilion at the New York World Fair in 1939 signals Aalto’s move away from the rules of the International Style towards his own vocabulary.
The great undulating wall of the exhibition hall in the New York pavilion was one of the boldest and spatially most exciting manifestations of the period.

In the The Baker House Dormitory at M.I.T. (1948) the undulating wall of the Dormitory was used to give the student a more pleasant view of the river.
The use of the undulating wall, which first appeared in the Viipuri Library (1935) became a hallmark of Aalto’s architecture.

The flowing undulating shape is repeated again in the interior of the Vouksenniska Church (1958) in Imatra and in all his glassware designs.
He is said to have been inspired by the flounces of his mother’s undergarment!

In the Villa Mairea (1939), a country house for an industrialist and his painter wife, all of Aalto’s ideas melted together to become an organic and artistic whole. It was his “Opus con Amore”....not a house, but a love poem.....
It was also everything the clients had asked for; Modern and Finnish...

When asked about his theories Aalto usually replied, “The truth about building is in building, not talk”.
Aalto remained productive until his death in 1976.
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Design architecture, modern architecture, house architecture, design interior, design exterior, house décor architecture, architect., minimalist architecture, apartment., structure building, architecture building, multistoried building, architecture plan,

Landscape, tower building, architecture American, architecture UK, architecture Australia, architecture classic, arcade, city town, architectural, natural concept, green house, lamp interior, roof concept, architecture books, architecture magazine, journal architecture, modern kitchen