BIOGRAPHY

 Born:
 February 3, 1898 in Kuortane,
Finland
 Died:
 May 11, 1976 in Helsinki, Finland
 Full Name:
 Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto
 Education:
 Graduated with honors in
architecture from Helsinki University
of Technology

Aalto's awards included the Royal Gold

Medal for Architecture from the Royal
Institute of British Architects (1957) and
 The Gold Medal from the American
Institute of Architects (1963).
He was elected a Foreign Honorary
Member of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences in 1957.

He was, one might say, a friendly architect, concerned with people more than power,
with pleasing more than impressing.
 PHILOSOPHY

 "We should work for simple, good, undecorated things,"

he explained further in his 1957 London speech, "but
things which are in harmony with the human being and
organically suited to the little man in the street.“
 Alvar Aalto was an advocate for design as a total work of
art (Gesamtkunstwerk), thus he considered interior
design to be an integral part of a building’s architecture.
 His early career was defined by classicism, in
particular, Nordic Classicism, but his design approach
shifted to modernism in the 1920s with the Viiprui
Library
 HIS FAMOUS WORKS
PAIMIO TUBERCULOSIS
SANATORIUM BAKER HOUSE

WHITE GUARDS
HEADQUARTER FINNISH PAVILION

LAKEUDEN RISTI
CHURCH
FINLANDIA HALL

VIIPURI OR VYBORG
INSTITUTE OF
LIBRARY
TECHNOLOGY
 WHITE GUARDS HEADQUARTERS

Early in his career, Alvar Aalto was

LAMPS
classically inspired. This neoclassical
building was headquarters for the White
Guards in Seinajoki.
 It is now a museum.

HEADQUARTER
WINDOWS AND
COLUMNS

HEADQUARTERS Architectural detail of the

1920 neoclassical
Headquarters for the White
Guards (Civil Guard House)
SIDE VIEW OF THE designed by architect Alvar
HEADQUARTER Aalto in Seinajoki, Finland -
The building is now the Lotta
Svard Museum.
The Civil Guard Museum is
a museum about volunteer
national defense
 PAIMIO TUBERCULOSIS SANATORIUM
ARCHITECT: Alvar
Aalto
LOCATION: Paimio,
Finland Entrance of
sanatorium
DATE:1929 to 1933
BUILDING TYPE:
Hospital
CONSTRUCTION LAMP
SYSTEM: concrete DESIGNED
BY HIM
AALTO’S
SKETCH OF
SKETCH OF SANATORIUM
FURNITURE

RENDERED
VIEW OF
SANATORIUM
 SECTIONS OF SANATORIUM
Alvar Aalto's tuberculosis sanatorium
is remotely situated in thick forest about
29km east of Turku.
It is the building that first put Finland
on the modern architectural map.
Aalto's starting point for the design of
the sanatorium was to make the
building itself a contributor to the
The reinforced concrete frame healing process
construction is fully exposed and
fully exploited aesthetically: taut
and muscular yet gracefully
SKYLIGHT OF
modulated.
SANATORIUM

BED DESIGNED BY
AALTO
CHAIRS DESIGNED
BY AALTO
 FINNISH PAVILION
"The 52-ft.-high Pavilion
 ARCHITECT: Alvar aalto consisted of four stories in all.
 LOCATION: New York The uppermost series of
photographs showed the
 DATE: 1939 Country; the next, the People;
 BUILDING TYPE: Exhibition Interior the third, somewhat lower down,
Work, and finally the bottom
 CONSTRUCTION SYSTEM: Wood series depicted the results of the
 STYLE: Modern above three factors—the
Products."

CREATOR’S WORD
"An exhibition should be what in the early days it
used to be, a general store: in which all possible
objects are grouped together in a dense display—
whether it be fish, cloth or cheese. Therefore in
this pavilion I have attempted to provide the
densest possible concentration of display, a space
filled with wares, next to and above and beneath
each other, agricultural and industrial products
often just a few inches apart. It was no easy
work—composing the individual elements into one 3-D MODEL
symphony."
"This pavilion was truly a 'magic box' from a spatial point of view on the inside,
whilst it remained a simple functional box on the outside."
INTERIORS AND FURNITURE
FURNITURE
DESIGNED BY
STAIR CASES AALTO

INTERIOR
WITH WOOD

"The interior finish was of wood with different profiles so

formed as to create an harmonic rhythm of materials
and photographic presentations. The materials used
in the construction of the wall surfaces were also treated
as objects on exhibit."
"The roof, too, was used as exhibit area: aeroplane
propellers of pressed wood, a Finnish specialty, churned
the air both as objects on display and as a source of
ventilation.
 BAKER HOUSE

ARCHITECT:ALVAR AALTO
LOCATION: Cambridge, Massachusets
DATE: 1947-1948
BUILDING TYPE: College Dormitory
CONSTRUCTION SYSTEM: Brick
STYLE: Modern

ELEVATION

PLAN
"The site is located on a heavily-trafficked
street along the Charles River. In order to
avoid as much as possible the disturbing
view out onto this street, a curving plan
SECTION
form was chosen.
By this means, no room was oriented at
right angles to the street and its traffic.
 PLAN AND MODEL

EOVUTION OF
MODEL
AUTOCAD DRAWING
An attempt to make use of this
It is well known how phenomenon was made with the
much more tranquil form of the building: the windows
it is to look, for face diagonally to the passing
example, from a automobiles and thus afford a
diagonal line of sight quieter environment for the person
out of the windows within the room
of a moving train at
the passing WINDOWS
landscape.
 INTERIORS AND EXTERIORS

WALKWAY AND RAMP

FRONT FACADE
VERY ORNATE BRICK WORK

INTERIORS
 INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

The centre is divided ARCHITECT: Alvar Aalto

into three principal
LOCATION: Otaniemi, Finland
departments: general,
geodetic and DATE: 1949 competition,
architectural. The chief completed in 1964
materials are dark red BUILDING TYPE: University
brick, black granite and
copper."
campus
CONSTRUCTION SYSTEM: Brick
masonry and reinforced concrete.
MAIN BUILDING STYLE: Modern
"The focal point of this
university centre is the
auditorium building with two
large halls (also intended for
congresses).
 All tuition rooms are in
adjacent buildings grouped about
small internal courts, and here
are also found the smaller
lecture-rooms, laboratories and
professors' rooms
 QUOTE BY ALVAR AALTO

Building art is a synthesis of life in materialized form. We should try to

bring in under the same hat not a splintered way of thinking, but all in
harmony together.

Nothing is as dangerous in architecture as dealing with separated

problems. If we split life into separated problems we split the
possibilities to make good building art.

We should concentrate our work not only to a separated housing problem

but housing involved in our daily work and all the other functions of
the city.

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.
 LAKEUDEN RISTI CHURCH
There was a competition for the design
of Seinäjoki church which took place in
1951. There was no agreement because
Aalto’s design did not follow some
patterns required. Finally the
construction took place until 1957-
1960.
PLAN AND SECTION
DETAIL
The church seats 1200
people, the gallery another
124 and the small chapel 50
people. Everything, even in
the interior, was designed by
Alvar Aalto. It is absolutely a
fascinating and impressive to
see how perfect the
measurements and details in
the inside are.
 DETAILS

There is an elevator
and 36 more steps to
get to the top of the
tower.

DETAIL OF
CHURCH
As part of the church
there is a cross bell
tower, which is 65 m,
Seinäjoki’s highest
building, which is RISTI CHURCH
possible to visit as well.
 VIIPURI OR VYBORG LIBRARY

ARCHITECT: Alvar Aalto

LOCATION: Vyborg, USSR
DATE: 1927 to 1935
BUILDING TYPE: Library
CONSTRUCTION SYSTEM:
Stone cladding and Stucco
"The competition project with which
Aalto won the competition for this
library in 1927 was heavily indebted to
 Itis famous for the
[Erik Gunnar Asplund]'s Stockholm
Library scheme...During the wave-shaped ceiling of
development of the design, the site was the It is considered to be
changed from being beside a main road one of the first examples
to being within a park, a change which of "regional
allowed Aalto to open up the building modernism".
to light on all sides. The walls of the auditorium. Aalto
building contain a forced-air ventilation
system, which confirms Aalto's concern
claimed the shape was
for technical matters, already based on acoustic
established at Paimio." studies.
 PLAN

READING
ROOM CIRCULATION
DESK
BOOK STOCKS AND READING
AREA

ADMINISTRATION AREA

SECOND
FLOOR +1 CHILDREN’S ENTRANCE

CHILDREN’S LIBRARY

STOCK ROOM
 INTERIORS
The use of the undulating wall eventually
became a hallmark of Aalto's architecture,
as did the sunken reading-well and
cylindrical skylights.
He differed from modernist architects such
as Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier in his
use of natural materials, in this case wood.

Aalto was commissioned to The building was damaged in WWII,

design the library when he won and the city itself was ceded to the Soviet
first prize in an architectural Union. Soviet authorities planned to
competition in 1927 for the repair it, but it never came to pass.
building.  During the 1950s architect Aleksandr
 His original proposal went Shver drew schemes for its restoration in
through some serious changes, the contemporary Stalinist classical style
going from Nordic Classicism to a as he did not have access to the original
severely functional style to its final design plans.
purist modernist incarnation The building was renovated during
1955-1961, and housed the central
library of Vyborg.
 FINLANDIA HALL
ARCHITECT: Alvar Aalto
LOCATION : Helsinki,
Finland
DATE: 1967- 1971
BUILDING TYPE: Concert
and Congress centre
CONSTRUCTION SYSTEM:
Carrara Marble
STYLE: Modern Finlandia Hall is Helsinki's
Aalto's masterpiece is an leading concert and congress
centre.
attraction in itself. The
main part of the building It includes facilities for
rises like a tower and has concerts, conferences
an inclined roof. Aalto and exhibitions and is
thought he could improve equally suitable for
the acoustics by providing symphony concerts and
light entertainment,
a resonance space
international congresses
overhead. The audience and small meetings.
cannot see it because of the
suspended ceiling,
 EXTERIORS

USE OF
MARBLE IN
EXTERIOR

INCLINED ROOF

It creates the kind of acoustic CHANGING

effect that is characteristic of LANDSCAPE
churches with high ceilings.
Unfortunately, this aspect of the
architecture was not entirely
successful.
PLAN
 INTERIORS

CORNER

TOP OF MAIN
ENTRANCE

DELIGHTFUL
DETAIL

CONCERT HALL

WELL KNOWN WOOD IN AIR

STAIRCASE
 HIS MORE PROJETS

KUNSTEN MUSEUM
OF ARTS

TURUN SANOMAT

DANISH TEGNESTUEN
VANDKUNSTEN

VILLA MAIRIA
 LAMPS AND FURNITURE DESIGNED BY
AALTO
BELL PEDANT LAMP

BEEHIVE LAMPSHADE LIGHT FITTING TURUN LAMP OF NATIONAL

SANOMAT PENSION INSTITUTE
LIGHT FITTING PAIMIO
SANOMAT

LAMPS OF SANATORIUM