Alvar Aalto
Aalto made modernism humane, with wood, brick, light and soft lines. The Paimio Sanatorium, the Vyborg Library and the Villa Mairea are his principal works, and his bentwood furniture is still in production.
Alvar Aalto was born in 1898 in Kuortane in Finland, the son of a land surveyor, and grew up in Jyväskylä. He studied architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology from 1916 to 1921 and opened his first office in Jyväskylä in 1923, where he designed buildings in the Nordic Classicist style, inspired among other things by journeys to Italy and by Swedish architecture. In 1924 he married the architect Aino Marsio, who was his close collaborator until her death in 1949. He moved to Turku in 1927 and to Helsinki in 1933. Around 1927–1928 he became a modernist and made contact with Europe’s leading architects through the international congress CIAM.
The Paimio Sanatorium, 1929–1933, is a tuberculosis hospital in which everything was designed for the patients, from the windows to the famous bentwood Paimio chair. The Vyborg Library has an undulating timber ceiling in its lecture hall for the sake of the acoustics. The Villa Mairea, 1937–1939, unites modernism and Finnish tradition with wood, stone and natural materials. His furniture was produced by the company Artek, founded in 1935. After the war he designed Baker House at MIT, Säynätsalo Town Hall, the church at Imatra and Finlandia Hall in Helsinki. He made modernism softer and more humane, with organic forms, light from above, wood and brick, and care for human experience.
Aalto died in 1976 and is regarded as one of the foremost architects of the 20th century. His organic modernism became an alternative to the austere International Style and has influenced architects worldwide. His furniture and glass, such as the Savoy vase, are still made today. He had close ties with Sweden: he visited the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition, was a friend of Gunnar Asplund and Sven Markelius, and took part in Nordic architectural meetings. Swedish architects who travelled to Finland to see his buildings were influenced by his use of wood, brick and light. In Sweden his ideas of adapting architecture to people and place were especially significant in the post-war period.