Alvar Aalto: Humanised Modernism in Finland

Alvar Aalto (1898–1976) was a Finnish architect and designer who gave functionalism a softer, more human form. He used wood, brick and natural light, shaped buildings and furniture to people’s needs and is known for Paimio Sanatorium, the library in Viipuri and Villa Mairea.

Facts

From classicism to functionalism

Aalto trained in Helsinki and began his career in the spirit of Nordic Classicism. His interest in functionalism was awakened by a visit to the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930, designed by Gunnar Asplund, and he quickly became a leading champion. He married the architect Aino Marsio, who was his partner in the work until she died in 1949.

In the 1920s Aalto won competitions for libraries, newspaper buildings and hospitals. His first buildings were white and geometric like his colleagues’, but he soon began to say that functionalism must be human, not only technical. Read about the movement in the guide to functionalism and about Nordic Classicism.

Paimio and Viipuri

Paimio Sanatorium, built 1929–1933 for tuberculosis patients, was planned as an instrument for healing. The rooms face south, and windows, wall colours, floors and washbasins are adapted to patients lying down, and stairs and light were designed for the weak. Aalto also designed the furniture, among it the Paimio chair in bent birch plywood, designed to make breathing easier for patients.

The library in Viipuri (1927–1935), now in Russia, had a reading-room ceiling with round skylights and an undulating wooden ceiling in the lecture hall that spread sound. It was a breakthrough in international architecture. The building decayed after the war but has been restored. Aalto is one of the best examples of how modernism’s bright rooms could become warm.

Villa Mairea and Säynätsalo

Villa Mairea (1938–1939) was designed for the wealthy couple Harry and Maire Gullichsen in Noormarkku. The house blends white plaster with wood, brick and stone, a spiral staircase supported by tree trunks, a glazed winter garden and an outdoor landscape room. Every part is individually designed, but the whole holds together. It is regarded as one of the most important homes of the twentieth century.

Säynätsalo Town Hall (1949–1952) is one of his best-known public buildings: a small brick building around a courtyard on a hill, resembling a medieval town in miniature. Later he built Finlandia Hall in Helsinki (1962–1971) in white marble, and he also designed Baker House at MIT and the church in Vuoksenniska. Read about the styles of the post-war period under post-war modernism.

Artek, glass and the legacy

In 1935 Alvar and Aino Aalto founded, together with Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl, the company Artek to sell their furniture. Stool 60 of 1933, with three legs of bent birch, is the best seller; hundreds of thousands have been made. Aalto also designed glass, the Savoy vase of 1936, whose organic form is said to resemble a Finnish lake. See Aalto as a designer and Scandinavian design, and Finnish design history.

Alvar Aalto died in 1976, but his influence lives on. He showed that modernism could take account of material, climate and the human senses, and he inspired architects such as Jørn Utzon. He could have been Le Corbusier’s opposite: soft, handmade and local. See also Gropius and Sven Markelius. The period is found under Nordic architecture; see also Helsinki Central Station by Eliel Saarinen, a predecessor.

How to recognise it

Exercise

Which material is typical of Aalto’s furniture, such as Stool 60?