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Alvar AALTO
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (February 3, 1898 May 11, 1976) was a Finnish architect and designer, sometimes called the "Father of Modernism" in the Scandinavian countries. His work includes architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware. He is also known for his strong cooperation with the Ahlstrm-Gullichsen family.[1]
Alvar Aalto was born in Kuortane, Finland. His father, Johan Henrik Aalto, was a Finnish-speaking land-surveyor and his mother, Selly (Selma) Matilda (nee Hackstedt) was a post-mistress. When Aalto was 5 years old, the family moved to Alajrvi, and from there to Jyvskyl in Central Finland. Aalto studied at the Jyvskyl Lyceum school, completing his basic education in 1916. In 1916 he then enrolled to study architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology, graduating in 1921.
In 1923 he returned to Jyvskyl, where he opened his first architectural office. The following year he married architect Aino Marsio. Their honeymoon journey to Italy sealed an intellectual bond with the culture of the Mediterranean region that was to remain important to Aalto for the rest of his life. Aalto moved his office to Turku in 1927, and started collaborating with architect Erik Bryggman. The office moved again in 1933 to Helsinki.
Alvar Aalto Studio, Helsinki (1954-6)
The Aaltos designed and built a joint house-office (1935-36) for themselves in Munkkiniemi, Helsinki, but later (1954-56) had a purpose-built office built in the same neighbourhood. Aino and Alvar Aalto had 2 children, a daughter Johanna "Hanni" Alanen, born Aalto, 1925, and a son Hamilkar Aalto, 1928. In 1926 the young Aaltos designed and had built a summer cottage in Alajrvi, Villa Flora. Aino Aalto died of cancer in 1949. In 1952 Aalto married architect Elissa Mkiniemi (died 1994), who had been working as an assistant in his office. In 1952 Aalto designed and had built a summer cottage, the so-called Experimental House, for himself and his new wife in Muuratsalo in Central Finland. Alvar Aalto died on May 11, 1976, in Helsinki.[2]
Although he is sometimes regarded as among the first and most influential architects of Nordic modernism, a closer examination of the historical facts reveals that Aalto (while a pioneer in Finland) closely followed and had personal contacts with other pioneers in Sweden, in particular Gunnar Asplund and Sven Markelius. What they and many others of that generation in the Nordic countries had in common was that they started off from a classical education and were first designing in the so-called Nordic Classicism style - a style that had been a reaction to the previous dominant style of National Romanticism - before moving, in the late 1920s, towards Modernism.
Auditorium of the Viipuri Municipal Library in the 1930s.
In Aalto's case this is epitomised by the Viipuri Library (1927-35), which went through a transformation from an originally classical competition entry proposal to the completed high-modernist building. Yet his humanistic approach is in full evidence in the library: the interior displays natural materials, warm colours, and undulating lines. Due to problems over financing and a change of site, the Viipuri Library project lasted eight years, and during that same time he also designed the Turun Sanomat Building (1929-30) and Paimio Sanatorium (1929-33). Thus, the Turun Sanomat Building first heralded Aalto's move towards modernism, and this was then carried forward both in the Paimio Sanatorium and in the on-going design for the library. Although the Turun Sanomat Building and Paimio Sanatorium are comparatively pure modernist works, they too carried the seeds of his questioning of such an orthodox modernist approach and a move to a more daring, synthetic attitude.
Aalto was a member of the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne, attending the second congress in Frankfurt in 1929 and the fourth congress in Athens in 1933. It was not until the completion of the Paimio Sanatorium (1929) and Viipuri Library (1935) that he first achieved world attention in architecture. His reputation grew in the USA following the critical reception of his design for the Finnish Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair, described by Frank Lloyd Wright as a "work of genius".
It could be said that Aalto's reputation was sealed with his inclusion in the second edition of Sigfried Giedion's influential book on Modernist architecture, Space, Time and Architecture: The growth of a new tradition (1949), in which Aalto received more attention than any other Modernist architect, including Le Corbusier. In his analysis of Aalto, Giedion gave primacy to qualities that depart from direct functionality, such as mood, atmosphere, intensity of life and even 'national characteristics', declaring that "Finland is with Aalto wherever he goes".
His increased fame led to offers and commissions outside Finland. In 1941 he accepted an invitation as a visiting professor to MIT, in USA. While teaching there, Aalto also designed the student dormitory, Baker House, completed in 1948. This building was the first building of Aalto's redbrick period. Originally used in Baker House to signify the Ivy league university tradition, on his return to Finland Aalto used it in a number of key buildings, in particular several of the buildings in the new Helsinki University of Technology campus, which began from 1950, Helsinki Pensions Institute (1954), Synatsalo Town Hall (1952).
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).
Works
Aalto's career spans the changes in style from (Nordic Classicism) to purist International Style Modernism to a more personal, synthetic and idiosyncratic Modernism. Aalto's wide field of design activity ranges from the large scale of city planning and architecture to interior design, furniture and glassware design and painting. 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. He also has a few buildings in the USA, Germany, Italy, and France.[3]
Aalto claimed that his paintings were not made as individual artworks but as part of his process of architectural design, and many of his small-scale "sculptural" experiments with wood led to later larger architectural details and forms. These experiments also led to a number of patents: for example, he invented a new form of laminated bent-plywood furniture in 1932. His experimental method had been influenced by his meetings with various members of the Bauhaus design school, especially Lszl Moholy-Nagy, whom he first met in 1930. Aalto's furniture was exhibited in London in 1935, to great critical acclaim, and to cope with the consumer demand Aalto, together with his wife Aino, Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl founded the company Artek that same year. Aalto glassware (Aino as well as Alvar) is manufactured by Iittala.
Significant buildings
* 1921 1923: Bell tower of Kauhajrvi Church, Lapua, Finland
* 1924 1928: Municipal hospital, Alajrvi, Finland
* 1926 1929: Defence Corps Building, Jyvskyl, Finland
* 1927 1935: Municipal library, Viipuri, Finland (now Vyborg, Russia)
* 1928 1929, 1930: Turun Sanomat newspaper offices, Turku, Finland
* 1928 1929: Paimio Sanatorium, Tuberculosis sanatorium and staff housing, Paimio, Finland
* 1931: Central University Hospital, Zagreb, Croatia (former Yugoslavia)
* 1932: Villa Tammekann, Tartu, Estonia
* 1934: Corso theatre, restaurant interior, Zrich, Switzerland
* 1936 - 1938: Ahlstrom Sunila Pulp Mill, Housing, and Town Plan, Kotka
* 1937: Finnish Pavilion, 1937 World's Fair
* 1937 1939: Villa Mairea, Noormarkku, Finland
* 1939: Finnish Pavilion, 1939 World's Fair
* 1947 1948: Baker House, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
* 1949 1966: Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland
* 1949 1952: Syntsalo Town Hall, 1949 competition, built 1952, Syntsalo (now part of
Jyvskyl), Finland
* 1950 1957: Kansanelkelaitos (National Pension Institution) office building, Helsinki,
Finland
* 1952 1958: House of Culture, Helsinki, Finland
* 1957: The Experimental House, Muuratsalo, Finland
* 1958 1987: Town centre, Seinjoki, Finland
* 1958 1972: North Jutland Art Museum, Aalborg, Denmark
* 1959 1962: Enso-Gutzeit Headquarters, Helsinki, Finland
* 1962: Aalto-Hochhaus, Bremen, Germany
* 1965: Regional Library of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland
* 1962 1971: Finlandia Hall, Helsinki, Finland
* 1963 1965: Building for Vstmanland-Dala nation, Uppsala, Sweden
* 1965 1968: Nordic House, Reykjavk, Iceland
* 1970: Mount Angel Abbey Library, Mt. Angel, Oregon, USA
* 1959 1988: Essen opera house, Essen, Germany
Furniture and glassware
Chairs
* 1932: Paimio Chair [4][5]
* 1933: Three-legged stacking Stool 60 [6]
* 1933: Four-legged Stool E60 [7]
* 1935-6: Armchair 404 (a/k/a/ Zebra Tank Chair) [8]
* 1939: Armchair 406 [9]
Lamps
* 1954: Floor lamp A805 [10]
* 1959: Floor lamp A810 [11]
Vases
* 1936: Aalto Vase
Source : en.wikipedia.org/...///en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvar_Aalto
Alvar Aalto was born in Kuortane, Finland. His father, Johan Henrik Aalto, was a Finnish-speaking land-surveyor and his mother, Selly (Selma) Matilda (nee Hackstedt) was a post-mistress. When Aalto was 5 years old, the family moved to Alajrvi, and from there to Jyvskyl in Central Finland. Aalto studied at the Jyvskyl Lyceum school, completing his basic education in 1916. In 1916 he then enrolled to study architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology, graduating in 1921.
In 1923 he returned to Jyvskyl, where he opened his first architectural office. The following year he married architect Aino Marsio. Their honeymoon journey to Italy sealed an intellectual bond with the culture of the Mediterranean region that was to remain important to Aalto for the rest of his life. Aalto moved his office to Turku in 1927, and started collaborating with architect Erik Bryggman. The office moved again in 1933 to Helsinki.
Alvar Aalto Studio, Helsinki (1954-6)
The Aaltos designed and built a joint house-office (1935-36) for themselves in Munkkiniemi, Helsinki, but later (1954-56) had a purpose-built office built in the same neighbourhood. Aino and Alvar Aalto had 2 children, a daughter Johanna "Hanni" Alanen, born Aalto, 1925, and a son Hamilkar Aalto, 1928. In 1926 the young Aaltos designed and had built a summer cottage in Alajrvi, Villa Flora. Aino Aalto died of cancer in 1949. In 1952 Aalto married architect Elissa Mkiniemi (died 1994), who had been working as an assistant in his office. In 1952 Aalto designed and had built a summer cottage, the so-called Experimental House, for himself and his new wife in Muuratsalo in Central Finland. Alvar Aalto died on May 11, 1976, in Helsinki.[2]
Although he is sometimes regarded as among the first and most influential architects of Nordic modernism, a closer examination of the historical facts reveals that Aalto (while a pioneer in Finland) closely followed and had personal contacts with other pioneers in Sweden, in particular Gunnar Asplund and Sven Markelius. What they and many others of that generation in the Nordic countries had in common was that they started off from a classical education and were first designing in the so-called Nordic Classicism style - a style that had been a reaction to the previous dominant style of National Romanticism - before moving, in the late 1920s, towards Modernism.
Auditorium of the Viipuri Municipal Library in the 1930s.
In Aalto's case this is epitomised by the Viipuri Library (1927-35), which went through a transformation from an originally classical competition entry proposal to the completed high-modernist building. Yet his humanistic approach is in full evidence in the library: the interior displays natural materials, warm colours, and undulating lines. Due to problems over financing and a change of site, the Viipuri Library project lasted eight years, and during that same time he also designed the Turun Sanomat Building (1929-30) and Paimio Sanatorium (1929-33). Thus, the Turun Sanomat Building first heralded Aalto's move towards modernism, and this was then carried forward both in the Paimio Sanatorium and in the on-going design for the library. Although the Turun Sanomat Building and Paimio Sanatorium are comparatively pure modernist works, they too carried the seeds of his questioning of such an orthodox modernist approach and a move to a more daring, synthetic attitude.
Aalto was a member of the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne, attending the second congress in Frankfurt in 1929 and the fourth congress in Athens in 1933. It was not until the completion of the Paimio Sanatorium (1929) and Viipuri Library (1935) that he first achieved world attention in architecture. His reputation grew in the USA following the critical reception of his design for the Finnish Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair, described by Frank Lloyd Wright as a "work of genius".
It could be said that Aalto's reputation was sealed with his inclusion in the second edition of Sigfried Giedion's influential book on Modernist architecture, Space, Time and Architecture: The growth of a new tradition (1949), in which Aalto received more attention than any other Modernist architect, including Le Corbusier. In his analysis of Aalto, Giedion gave primacy to qualities that depart from direct functionality, such as mood, atmosphere, intensity of life and even 'national characteristics', declaring that "Finland is with Aalto wherever he goes".
His increased fame led to offers and commissions outside Finland. In 1941 he accepted an invitation as a visiting professor to MIT, in USA. While teaching there, Aalto also designed the student dormitory, Baker House, completed in 1948. This building was the first building of Aalto's redbrick period. Originally used in Baker House to signify the Ivy league university tradition, on his return to Finland Aalto used it in a number of key buildings, in particular several of the buildings in the new Helsinki University of Technology campus, which began from 1950, Helsinki Pensions Institute (1954), Synatsalo Town Hall (1952).
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).
Works
Aalto's career spans the changes in style from (Nordic Classicism) to purist International Style Modernism to a more personal, synthetic and idiosyncratic Modernism. Aalto's wide field of design activity ranges from the large scale of city planning and architecture to interior design, furniture and glassware design and painting. 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. He also has a few buildings in the USA, Germany, Italy, and France.[3]
Aalto claimed that his paintings were not made as individual artworks but as part of his process of architectural design, and many of his small-scale "sculptural" experiments with wood led to later larger architectural details and forms. These experiments also led to a number of patents: for example, he invented a new form of laminated bent-plywood furniture in 1932. His experimental method had been influenced by his meetings with various members of the Bauhaus design school, especially Lszl Moholy-Nagy, whom he first met in 1930. Aalto's furniture was exhibited in London in 1935, to great critical acclaim, and to cope with the consumer demand Aalto, together with his wife Aino, Maire Gullichsen and Nils-Gustav Hahl founded the company Artek that same year. Aalto glassware (Aino as well as Alvar) is manufactured by Iittala.
Significant buildings
* 1921 1923: Bell tower of Kauhajrvi Church, Lapua, Finland
* 1924 1928: Municipal hospital, Alajrvi, Finland
* 1926 1929: Defence Corps Building, Jyvskyl, Finland
* 1927 1935: Municipal library, Viipuri, Finland (now Vyborg, Russia)
* 1928 1929, 1930: Turun Sanomat newspaper offices, Turku, Finland
* 1928 1929: Paimio Sanatorium, Tuberculosis sanatorium and staff housing, Paimio, Finland
* 1931: Central University Hospital, Zagreb, Croatia (former Yugoslavia)
* 1932: Villa Tammekann, Tartu, Estonia
* 1934: Corso theatre, restaurant interior, Zrich, Switzerland
* 1936 - 1938: Ahlstrom Sunila Pulp Mill, Housing, and Town Plan, Kotka
* 1937: Finnish Pavilion, 1937 World's Fair
* 1937 1939: Villa Mairea, Noormarkku, Finland
* 1939: Finnish Pavilion, 1939 World's Fair
* 1947 1948: Baker House, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
* 1949 1966: Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland
* 1949 1952: Syntsalo Town Hall, 1949 competition, built 1952, Syntsalo (now part of
Jyvskyl), Finland
* 1950 1957: Kansanelkelaitos (National Pension Institution) office building, Helsinki,
Finland
* 1952 1958: House of Culture, Helsinki, Finland
* 1957: The Experimental House, Muuratsalo, Finland
* 1958 1987: Town centre, Seinjoki, Finland
* 1958 1972: North Jutland Art Museum, Aalborg, Denmark
* 1959 1962: Enso-Gutzeit Headquarters, Helsinki, Finland
* 1962: Aalto-Hochhaus, Bremen, Germany
* 1965: Regional Library of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland
* 1962 1971: Finlandia Hall, Helsinki, Finland
* 1963 1965: Building for Vstmanland-Dala nation, Uppsala, Sweden
* 1965 1968: Nordic House, Reykjavk, Iceland
* 1970: Mount Angel Abbey Library, Mt. Angel, Oregon, USA
* 1959 1988: Essen opera house, Essen, Germany
Furniture and glassware
Chairs
* 1932: Paimio Chair [4][5]
* 1933: Three-legged stacking Stool 60 [6]
* 1933: Four-legged Stool E60 [7]
* 1935-6: Armchair 404 (a/k/a/ Zebra Tank Chair) [8]
* 1939: Armchair 406 [9]
Lamps
* 1954: Floor lamp A805 [10]
* 1959: Floor lamp A810 [11]
Vases
* 1936: Aalto Vase
Source : en.wikipedia.org/...///en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvar_Aalto
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