Alvar Aalto was a Finnish architect and designer and one of the most important figures of twentieth-century architecture. With a career that spans half a century, Aalto is considered to be one of the masters of modernism, was a leading member of the International Modem school of architecture, and remains known for his skillful balance of formal abstraction, individual expression, and thoughtful humanism.
Background
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was born on 3 February in 1898 in Kuortane, near Jyvaskyla, Finland. His father, Johan Henrik Aalto, was a Finnish-speaking land-surveyor and his mother, Selma Matilda was a Swedish-speaking postmistress. Alvar was the eldest of their four children. When Aalto was 5 years old, the family moved to Alajärvi, and from there to Jyväskylä in Central Finland. His desire to become an architect was influenced by his father and his grandfather, who were a forest officer and technical inventor.
Education
When Alvar was five the family moved from Kuortane to Jyväskylä where there was a Finnish grammar school. Aalto studied at the Jyväskylä Lyceum School, completing his basic education in 1916.
In 1916, he enrolled at Helsinki Polytechnic, where he studied architecture and became the protege of Armas Lindgren. Polytechnic teachers Carolus Lindberg and Usko Nystrom also influenced the young architect. During his years at the university, he took private lessons in painting. He frequented artistic circles, where he got acquainted with other painters and sculptors. His teachers at the Helsinki University of Technology were Armas Lindgren, Usko Nyström and Carolus Lindberg. The national romantic ideas dating from the turn of the century were passed on by Lindgren, for whom an important aspect of architecture was the designer's artistic expression. For Aalto's teachers, architectural history and tradition constituted an integral part of the methodology of design. Alvar Aalto built his first piece of architecture while still a student, a house for his parents. His studies were interrupted by the Finnish War of Liberation, in which he participated. Afterward, he continued his education, graduating in 1921.
After his graduation from the Technical Institute of Helsinki Alvar Aalto toured Europe and upon his return began practice in Jyväskylä, in central Finland as an art critic for the newspaper Italehti. Then he worked as an exhibition designer in Goeteborg, Sweden, in Tampere and in Turku, Finland. His early works include the Muurame Parish Church (1927-29) and the Farmers’ Cooperative in Turku (1927-28).
From 1927 Aalto started to establish himself as the most advanced architect in Finland. He received commissions for three important buildings: the Turun Sanomat Building (newspaper office) in Turku, the tuberculosis sanatorium at Paimio, where he had also designed furniture, and the Municipal Library at Viipuri (now Vyborg, Russia).
The decade of 1930 brought him worldwide recognition. Exhibition of his furniture at the London department store, Fortnum & Mason, was organized by the architectural critic Philip Morton Shand. As a result of the exhibition, Ph.M. Shand and G. M. Boumphrey established FINMAR, a company dedicated to importing and selling Aalto-designed furniture in England. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City held an exhibition of his work, showing furniture that he had designed and photographs of his buildings. Aalto was also a master of wooden furniture design, and invented the basic bent plywood process in 1932.
The New York Museum of Modern Art had held an exhibition of the Aaltos' work in 1938, and in the same year, he made the first trip to America. There he was appointed a research professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. He returned to Finland due to the Winter War (November 1939-March 1940), between Finland and the Soviet Union. After World War II Aalto headed the planning office set up to rebuild that country following the devastation of war.
Being a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he designed there the serpentine Baker House from 1947 to 1948. His major works included a number of striking civic buildings in Helsinki, the Maison Carré in Paris, a Finnish pavilions for two world's fairs (Paris, 1937; New York City, 1939-1940) and the Wolfsburg Cultural Center in Germany. It has been estimated that during his entire career Aalto designed over 500 individual buildings, approximately 300 of which were built, the vast majority of which are in Finland.
In the 50's he immersed himself in his sculpting, be it with bronze, marble, or mixed media. This paid off as he produced an outstanding piece for the memorial of the Battle of Suomussalmi (1960), located on the battlefield.
The early 1960s and 1970s (up until his death in 1976) were marked by key works in Helsinki, in particular the huge town plan for the void in centre of Helsinki adjacent to Töölö Bay and the vast railway yards, and marked on the edges by significant buildings such as the National Museum and the main railway station, both by Eliel Saarinen.
Outside Finland, most of Aalto's works are in Germany, a country from which he was already receiving commissions in the 1950s. There are also buildings designed by his office in Estonia, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Bangladesh, Italy, and Sweden.
Alvar Aalto achieved an international reputation through his more than 200 buildings and projects, ranging from factories to churches, a number of them built outside Finland. Aalto is often called a “father of modernism” in Northern Europe and regarded as the first artist to master modern architecture in that region. Aalto's “High Stool” and “Stool E60” (manufactured by Artek) are currently used in Apple Stores across the world to serve as seating for customers. Finished in black lacquer, the stools are used to seat customers at the “Genius Bar” and also in other areas of the store at times when seating is required for a product workshop or special event. He was also the founder and chairman of Finland's first film society.
Alvar Aalto had little interest in politics throughout his life. That, however, did not prevent him from siding with the White Army during the Russian and Finnish civil war, which he saw as defending of his homeland. At the later stage of his life, Aalto’s works were often criticized by left-wing activists, who saw them as an opposition to their views about the arts. Although Aalto himself has never shown any signs of concern on that matter.
Views
Alvar Aalto was identified with the so-called organic approach, or regional interpretation, of modern design. His style is regarded as both romantic and regional. He used complex forms and varied materials, acknowledged the character of the site, and gave attention to every detail of the building. His manipulation of floor levels and use of natural materials, skylights, and irregular forms gave him recognition as one of the world's outstanding modern architects.
For Aalto history was an important source of ideas and inspiration but no longer a methodological guideline. He was always prepared to replace buildings erected by previous generations with structures of his own. Aalto strongly represented the Western ideal of the architect – that of the enlightened autocrat whose task as a designer and the client's trusted partner is to direct the production of a built environment in its broadest sense and in all its aspects, from general plans to the details of interior design. In his case this task involved a firm belief that his own creations were functionally and aesthetically superior to those of his predecessors.
In his London speech in 1957 Alvar expressed his views on architecture. He said: “We should work for simple, good, undecorated things – things which are in harmony with the human being and organically suited to the little man in the street”.
Quotations:
"God created paper for the purpose of drawing architecture on it. Everything else is at least for me an abuse of paper."
"We should work for simple, good, undecorated things" and he continues, "but things which are in harmony with the human being and organically suited to the little man in the street."
Membership
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
,
United States
1957
Academy of Finland
,
Finland
1955
Akademie der Kunste
,
Germany
American Institute of Architects
,
United States
Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne
1926 - 1956
Personality
Despite being a combat veteran, Aalto was known for his anarchical, even anti-militaristic personality. He is often described as a bohemian, wit man with exuberant grim humor. Aalto was sometimes determined to a degree where it could be called stubbornness, but his vivid mind and unique sense of humor usually helped him to leave a good impression on the others.
Quotes from others about the person
Aalto's international reputation was sealed with his inclusion in the Sigfried Giedion's influential book on Modernist architecture “Space, Time and Architecture: The growth of a new tradition” (1949), where Aalto received more attention than any other Modernist architect, including Le Corbusier. In his analysis of Aalto, Giedion declares that “Finland is with Aalto wherever he goes”.
Italian Marxist architecture historians Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co were less enthusiastic however. They said: “historical significance has perhaps been rather exaggerated; with Aalto we are outside of the great themes that have made the course of contemporary architecture so dramatic. The qualities of his works have a meaning only as masterful distractions, not subject to reproduction outside the remote reality in which they have their roots”.
William C. Miller, in the International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture, finds that “through responsive and responsible design. Aalto was able to create an architecture that was extremely humane, yet profoundly tangible.”
Edgar J. Kaufmann Jr., in Interior Design magazine, writes that “Aalto had a remarkably sure touch, a sense of lyrical enjoyment, and repertory of witty details. This allowed his work to maintain an appealing human scale as well as human warmth. He enlarged the horizon of modem architectural design.”
Connections
Alvar was married to Aino Maria Marsio on 6 October in 1924 (she died of cancer in 1949). His second wife was Elissa Mäkiniemi. He had two children: Johanna "Hanni" Alanen and Hamilkar Aalto.
Father:
Johan Henrik Aalto
He was a Finnish-speaking geographical surveyor, who ran an office in his own house. Because of his father's work as a geographical surveyor, Alvar Aalto had already as a child close contact to the Finish landscape and it's geographical analysis via drawing. When Alvar Aalto was about to leave home to study in Helsinki his father gave him a piece of advice: "Alvar, always be a gentleman."
Mother:
Selma (Selly) Mathilda Hackstedt
She was a Swedish-speaking postal clerk.
ex-wife:
Aino Maria Marsio
On October 6 1924, he married his most important assistant, Aino Marsio, in 1924.Their honeymoon journey to Italy was Aalto's first trip there, though Aino had previously made a study trip there. Aino Aalto died of cancer in 1949. Aino and Alvar Aalto had 2 children.
Daughter:
Johanna "Hanni" Alanen
Johanna was born in 1925.
Son:
Hamilkar Aalto
Hamilkar was born in 1928.
Wife:
Elissa Mäkiniemi
Friend:
Sven Markelius
He proposed Alvar Aalto to become a member of International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM). Through the CIAM, Aalto became familiar with modernism's social platform in the fields of housing and urban planning.
