ALVAR AALTO

ALVAR AALTO
FINNISH ARCHITECT
the Savoy Vase, is a world famous piece of glassware and an
iconic piece of Finnish design created by Alvar Aalto and his
wife Aino Marsio.
"Archibet": if architects
designed an alphabet...
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (1898 –1976)
was a Finnish architect and designer, as
well as a sculptor and painter.
His work includes architecture,
furniture, textiles and glassware.
Muuratsalo
Alvar Aalto's
studio
alvar aalto furniture study model
Eliel Saarinen –Gara centrala Helsinki-1909
A synthesis of rational with intuitive design
principles allowed Aalto to create a long series
of functional yet non-reductionist buildings.
Alvar Aalto generated a style of functionalism
which avoided romantic excess and
neoclassical monotony. Although Aalto
borrowed from the International Style, he
utilized texture, color, and structure in creative
new ways. He refined the generic examples of
modern architecture that existed in most of
Europe and recreated them into a new Finnish
architecture. Aalto's designs were particularly
significant because of their response to site,
material and form.
BIBLIOTECA VIIPURI
NEW YORK- EXPO 1939
SANATORIU
PAIMIO
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”.
Alvar Aalto
Villa Mairea,
Noormarkku 1939
« Vila Mairea », construita pentru familia unui prieten langa
Noormark, in mijlocul unei paduri de pini situata pe o colina din
apropierea marii, are, pentru intelegerea gandirii lui Aalto, aceeasi
importanta ca « Vila Savoye » pentru Le Corbusier, sau « Casele
preriei » pentru Wright. La Mairea, Aalto manuieste spatiul ca un
element esential si aproape concret al arhitecturii. In acelasi timp
casa de vacanta si de lucru, vila cuprinde in afara pieselor
obisnuite- salon, bilblioteca, sala de muzica, dormitoare- un atelier
de pictura si o galerie pentru colectia de tablouri a proprietarului.
Un plan in forma de potcoava dispune cladirea pe panta
colinei, coborand in terase si balcoane succesive spre o piscina de
forma neregulata ; ansamblul poate fi imbratisat dintr-o privire din
living-room, care este legat de camera de muzica si de galeria de
tablouri. Etajul este rezrvat dormitoarelor si atelierelor de pictura.
Aalto realizeaza o intrepatrunderea spatiilor prin ziduri
ondulate duse numai pana la inaltimea ochiului , prin denivelari
savante, care te lasasa zaresti gragmente din alte incaperi sau sa
banuiesti existenta altora, pastrand totusi fiecareia intimitatea
necesara.Spatiul isi patreaza continuitatea, facandu-te sa descoperi
mereu alte imagini plastice, ca intr-o sculptura transparenta, creata
cu mijloace extrem de complexe si subtile.
« Este muzica de camera arhitecturala- spune Giedioncare cere cea mai mare atentie pentru a-i percepe
subtilitatea in alegerea motivelor, pentru a realiza pe deplin
modul in care este manuit spatiul si felul extraordinar in care
sunt folosite materialele ».
La cubierta de Villa Mairea
Alvar Aalto
House Louis Carré by Alvar Aalto, France
O casa a artei
Casa Carre a fost proiectata ca rezidenta permananta si cu scopul de a afisa colectia
fabuloasa de arta moderna a proprietarului sau. Picturi ale lui Leger, Bonnard,
Picasso, Dufy, villon, Lanskoy si Klee, sculturi ale lui Henri Laurens, Calder si
Alberto Giacometti , cat si arta africana, ornau intreaga casa.
Artisti, scriitori, clienti si prieteni erau invitati la vila si cartea de oaspeti arata
calitatea vietii sociale si culturale dusa in aceasta casa stralucitoare.
Louis Carre a afirmat ca vrea o « casa mica pe dinafara ,si spatioasa in interior ». La
intrarea pe holul principal , bolta de lemn creaza un efect izbitor . Acest tavan este
singurul element de forma libera si creeaza un sentiment de spatiu si deshidere pe
parcursul intregii case, dandu-i un aer aproape sacru.
Iluminarea , atat naturala cat si artificiala provine atat din luminatoarele de
deasupra usii cat si de la trei mari lampi care pun accentul pe acest sentiment de
spatiu clar si generos.
In acest templu al artei moderne , totul are ca scop sapuna in lumina colectia de arta a
proprietarului : pereti acoperiti cu panze albe pictate,un meticulos sistem de agatare si
lampi create pentru a ilumina peretii , cum ar fi lampa d pe tavan din zona de zi si
cele cu forme « libere » din zona locului de luat masa.
Rezultatul este o casa unica, iar comparata cu casele finlandeze ale lui Aalto,
Maison Carre are acea « atingere franceza » in protejarea caracterului acoperisului si a
intimitatii spatiilor , cat si a caldurii materialeleor folosite.
maison carré
1956-1959, france
Toppila Pulp Mill by Alvar Aalto. (Built in 1930-33)
Seinajoki Library "A double-loaded
corridor block is split about a third of the
way along to provide the focus of the
library, the entrance and control desk.
Seinajoki Library Commentary "A doubleloaded corridor block is split about a third of
the way along to provide the focus of the
library, the entrance and control desk. To the
left is the children's library, to the right the
administrative offices of the library, and right
ahead, a well in which the reference library is
housed; and around that and beyond, the
main stacks of the library fan out. The roof
identifies and contains the functional
separation of elements of the library, rising in
an abrupt curve over the main stacks to allow
light to enter and bounce around in the space.
Externally the roof-line reveals little of the
complexities experienced internally. The whole
building is white, except for its dark skirting
where it touches the ground and the entrance
steps hidden behind a marble slab."
— David Dunster, ed. Architectural
Monographs 4: Alvar Aalto. New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1984.
SEINAJOKI CENTER
Seinajoki
Alvar Aalto 1959
Seinajoki Town Hall
Alvar Aalto Studio, Helsinki (1954–56)
Aalto house
the preferred corner
Muuratsalo
Experimental House
Alvar Aalto-centrum i Östermyra
OPERA DIN ESSEN
AALBORG MUSEUM-DENMARK
North Jutland Art Museum
Ålborg, Denmark
“True architecture exists only where man stands in the center.”
Alvar Aalto
Baker House Dormitory, MIT,
Cambridge
The plan is composed around a singleloaded corridor.
Aalto refused to design north-facing
rooms since he wanted most rooms to
have a view of the river from the east or
west, and thus proposed enlarging the
rooms on the western end into large
double and triple rooms that receive both
northern and western light.
Instead of rooms, a stairway systems is
housed on the north side of the building
with an unobstructed view of its
surroundings.
He designed the Baker House in 1946 while he was a professor at the Massachussets
Institute of Technology, where the dormitory is located. It received its name in 1950, after
the MIT’s Dean of Students Everett Moore Baker was killed in an airplane crash that year.
The dormitory is a curving snake slithering on its site and reflects many of Aalto’s ideas of
formal strategy, making it a dormitory that is both inhabited and studied by students from
all over the world.
BREMEN APARTMENTS
HANSAVIERTEL-BERLIN
Otaniemi Technical University
CASA DE CULTURA HELSINKI
RIOLA CHURCH-ITALY
Lahti church by Alvar
Aalto
Church of the Three Crosses, Imatra, Finland
Sunila Mill
Wolfsburg Cultural Centre, Germany, 1958-1962
Workers Club, Helsinki.
Saynatsalo Town Hall
Many of Aalto’s greatest works could
be characterized as public buildings,
such as libraries, town halls and
churches, and his Säynätsalo Town
Hall is regarded as a masterclass in
multipurpose civic architecture for a
small town.
Due to his more regionally-specific
style, Aalto did not work
internationally as much as
contemporaries like Le Corbusier and
Mies van der Rohe, and most of his
buildings were completed in Finland
and surrounding North European
countries.
VENICE BIENNALE
venice biennale pavilion, 1955-56
Wolsburg cultural center DE
Rovaniemi Cultural Centre by Alvar Aalto - City Hall
FINLANDIA HALL- HELSINKI
the slight curvature of the Carrara Marble slabs
Finlandia Hall is a careful blend of
the monumental and the
democratic. On the east facade
(above), the scale of the building is
dramatic, the strong horizontal
emphasised by the deep recess of
the ground floor, and the
auditorium rising above the facade
to its full height. The staircases
projecting out from the facade,
faced in stark white marble in
contrast to the bands of vertical
windows covering the rest, give a
monumental sense even to the
human-scaled stairs (a variation of a
theme Aalto first used twenty years
earlier in Baker House at MIT). Yet
the pedestrian entrance to
Finlandia Hall, on the west side
from Mannerheimintie, shows a
very different, more domestic and
informal composition (below): the
auditorium at its minimum wall
height, an asymmetric entrance
leading to a single-story colonnade.
The blend of monumental and
democrating continues inside the
building, with extensive foyers that
are dramatic yet accessible at human
scale.
In 1932, Aino Aalto caștigă competiția de design Iittala-Karhula,
în Finlanda, și realizează pentru Iittala o colecție de obiecte de
sticlă.
Aalto Vase, by Herzog & de Meuron
Tampere Library-Reima Piettila
The Kiasma, 1998, is Helsinki’s contemporary
art museum. Designed by Steven Holl,