ALVAR ALTO MASTER

(1898 -1976)
SUBMITTED BY POOJA SINGH AR11021

Alvar alto: architect , designer

Born
Died Nationality Awards

ALVAR ALTO
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto February 3, 1898 Kuortane, Finland May 11, 1976 (aged 78) Helsinki, Finland Finnish RIBA Gold Medal AIA Gold Medal Paimio Sanatorium Syntsalo Town Hall Viipuri Library Villa Mairea Baker House Finlandia Hall Helsinki City Centre Savoy Vase Paimio Chair

Buildings

Projects Design

 His father, Johan Henrik Aalto, was a Finnish-speaking land-surveyor. His mother, Selly (Selma) Matilda (ne Hackstedt) was a postmistress. 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 HelsinkiUniversity of Technology, graduating in 1921.

Significant buildings
19211923:

Bell tower of Kauhajrvi Church, Lapua, Finland

19241928:

Municipal hospital, Alajrvi, Finland

19261929:

Finland

Defence Corps Building, Jyvskyl,

19271935:

Municipal library Viipuri Finland (now Vyborg, Russia)

19281929, 1930: Turun Sanomat newspaper offices, Turku, Finland 19281929: Paimio Sanatorium, Tuberculosis sanatorium and staff housing, Paimio Finland 1931: Central University Hospital, Zagreb, Croatia (formerYugoslavia) 1932: Villa Tammekann, Tartu, Estonia

19281929, 1930: Turun Sanomat newspaper offices, Turku, Finland 19361938: Ahlstrom Sunila Pulp Mill, Housing, and Town Plan, Kotka

19371939: Villa Mairea Noormarkku, Finland 1939: Finnish Pavilion, at the New York World's Fair

19471948: Baker House, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 19491966: Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland 19491952: Syntsalo Town Hall 1949 competition, built 1952, Syntsalo

19501957: Kansanelkelaitos (National Pension Institution) office buildin Helsinki, Finland 19521958: House of Culture, Helsinki, Finland 1953: The Experimental House, Muuratsalo, Finland 19581987: Town centre, Seinjoki, Finland

19581972: KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Aalborg, Denmark

19591962: Enso-Gutzeit Headquarters, Helsinki, Finland 1962: Aalto-Hochhaus, Bremen, Germany 1965: Regional Library of Lapland Rovaniemi, Finland

19621971: Finlandia Hall, Helsinki, Finland 19631965: Building for d Vstmanland-Dal nation, Uppsala, Sweden d Vstmanland-Dal nation, Uppsala, Sweden 19651968: Nordic House, Reykjavk, Iceland

1970: Mount Angel Abbey Library, St Benedict, Oregon, USA

19591988: essen opera house, Essen, Germany

Furniture and glassware

Chairs

1932: Paimio Chair 1933: Three-legged stacking Stool 60 1933: Four-legged Stool E60 1935-6: Armchair 404 (a/k/a/ Zebra Tank Chair) 1939: Armchair 406

Lamps
1954: Floor lamp A805 1959: Floor lamp A810

Vases
1936: Aalto Vase

Career
Early career: classicism
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.

On returning to Jyvskyl in 1923 to establish his own architect's office, Aalto busied himself with a number of singlefamily homes, all designed in the classical style, such as the manor-like house for his mother's cousin Terho Manner in Tysa in 1923, a summer villa for the Jyvskyl chief constable in 1923 and the Alatalo farmhouse in Tarvaala in 1924. During this period he also completed his first public buildings, the Jyvskyl Workers' Club in 1925, the Jyvskyl Defence Corps building in 1926 and the Seinajoki Defence Corp building in 1924-29.

Early career: functionalism

The shift in Aalto's design approach from classicism to modernism is epitomised by the Viipuri Library (192735), which went through a transformation from an originally classical competition entry proposal to the completed highmodernist 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 (192930) and Paimio Sanatorium (192933).

 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. 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.

It was not until the completion of the Paimio Sanatorium (1929) and Viipuri Library (1935) that Aalto 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 international 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"

Mid career: experimentation

Aalto's early experiments with wood and his move away from a purist modernism would be tested in built form with the commission to design Villa Mairea (1939) in Noormarkku, the luxury home of the young industrialist couple Harry and Maire Gullichsen.
It was Maire Gullichsen who acted as the main client, and she worked closely not only with Alvar but also Aino Aalto on the design, inspiring them to be more daring in their work.

The original design was to include a private art gallery, but this was never built. The building forms a U-shape around a central inner "garden" the central feature of which is a kidney-shaped swimming pool

Adjacent to the pool is a sauna executed in a rustic style, alluding to both Finnish and Japanese precedents. The design of the house is a synthesis of numerous stylistic influences, from traditional Finnish vernacular to purist modernism, as well as influences from English and Japanese architecture. While the house is clearly intended for a wealthy family, Aalto nevertheless argued that it was also an experiment that would prove useful in the design of mass housing His increased fame led to offers and commissions outside Finland. In 1941 he accepted an invitation as a visiting professor to MIT, in the USA.

This was during the Second World War, and he involved his students in designing low-cost, small-scale housing for the reconstruction of war-torn Finland. While teaching at MIT, 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, in several of the buildings in the new Helsinki University of Technology campus (starting in 1950), Synatsalo Town Hall (1952), Helsinki Pensions Institute (1954), Helsinki House of Culture (1958), as well as in his own summer house, the so-called Experimental House in Muuratsalo (1957).

Mature career: monumentalism

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 Tl 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. In his town plan Aalto proposed a line of separate marble-clad buildings fronting the bay which would house various cultural institutions, including a concert hall, opera, museum of architecture and headquarters for the Finnish Academy.

The scheme also extended into the Kamppi district with a series of tall office blocks. Aalto first presented his scheme in 1961, but it went through various modifications during the early 1960s. Only two fragments of the overall plan were ever realized: the Finlandia Hall concert hall (1976) fronting Tl Bay, and an office building in the Kamppi district for the Helsinki Electricity Company (1975).

Awards
Aalto's awards included the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture from the Royal Institute of British Architects (1957). 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.

WORKS
Aalto's career spans the changes in style from (Nordic Classicism) to purist International StyleModernism 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 France, Germany, Italy and the USA

Vyborg Library
The Municipal Library in Vyborg, Russia. Design by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto The library, built in 193335 is considered one of the first manifestations of "regional modernism

It is particularly famous for its waveshaped ceiling in the auditorium, the shape of which, Aalto argued, was based on acoustic studies.
On completion the library was known as Viipuri Library, but after the Second World War was renamed the Nadezhda Krupskaya Municipal Library. Nowadays it is known as The Central City Alvar Aalto Library.

Aalto received the commission to design the library after winning first prize in an architectural competition for the building held in 1927. Aalto's design went through a profound transformation from the original architectural competition proposal designed in the Nordic Classicism style to the severely functionalist building, completed eight years later in a purist modernist style.

HISTORY

 Architectural solutions as a sunken readingwell, free-flowing ceilings and cylindrical skylights, first tested in Viipuri, would regularly appear in Aalto's works.

Aalto differed from the first generation of modernist architects (such as Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier) in his predilection for natural materials: in this design, "wood was first introduced into an otherwise modernist setting of concrete, white stucco, glass, and steel".

World War II marked a turning point in the history not only of the library but the city of Vyborg itself, as it was ceded to the Soviet Union. The building had been damaged during World War II, and plans by the new Soviet authorities to repair it were proposed but never carried out.

 The building then remained empty for a decade, causing even more damage, including the destruction of the waveshaped auditorium ceiling. During the 1950s schemes were drawn up for its restoration including a version in the Stalinist classical style typical of the time by architect Aleksandr Shver.

The library has also been the starting point for a very different kind of art project, a film titled What's the time in Vyborg? (2002) by Finnish-American artist Liisa Roberts.
Roberts was challenging the introspective view Finns have of their former city, by organising and filming writing workshops arranged for local Vyborg youths.

Paimio Sanatorium
Paimio Sanatorium is a former tuberculosis sanatorium in Paimio, Finland Proper, designed by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto The building was completed in 1932, and soon after received critical acclaim both in Finland and abroad.

The building served exclusively as a tuberculosis sanatorium until the early 1960s, when it was converted into a general hospital.Today the building is part of the Turku University Hospital.

Aalto received the commission to design the building after winning an architectural competition for the project held in 1929. Though the building represents the 'modernist' period of Aalto's career, and followed many of the tenets of Le Corbusier's pioneering ideas for modernist architecture (e.g. ribbon windows, roof terraces, machine aesthetic). It also carried the seeds of Aalto's later move towards a more synthetic approach. The main entrance is marked by a nebulousshaped canopy unlike anything being designed at that time by the older generation of modernist architects.
The building is widely regarded as one of his most important early designs. Aalto and his wife Aino designed all of the sanatorium's furniture and interiors. Some of the furniture, most notably the Paimio chair, is still in production by Artek.

HISTORY

Aalto's starting point for the design of the sanatorium was to make the building itself a contributor to the healing process . He liked to call the building a "medical instrument". Particular attention was paid to the design of the patient bedrooms: these generally held two patients, each with his or her own cupboard and washbasin. Aalto designed special nonsplash basins, so that the patient would not disturb the other while washing.

ARCHITECTURE

 The patients spent many hours lying down, and thus Aalto placed the lamps in the room out of the patients line of vision and painted the ceiling a relaxing dark green so as to avoid glare. Each patient had their own specially designed cupboard, fixed to the wall and off the floor so as to aid in cleaning beneath it. In the early years the only known "cure" for tuberculosis was complete rest in an environment with clean air and sunshine. Thus on each floor of the building, at the end of the patient bedroom wing, were sunning balconies, where weak patients could be pulled out in their beds. Healthier patients could go and lie on the sun deck on the very top floor of the building. As the patients spent a long timetypically several yearsin the sanatorium.

 There was a distinct community atmosphere among both staff and patients; something which Aalto had taken into account in his designs, with various communal facilities, a chapel, as well as staff housing, and even specially laid out promenade routes through the surrounding forest landscape.

In the 1950s the disease could be partly dealt with by surgery and thus a surgery wing, also designed by Aalto, was added. Soon after, antibiotics saw the virtual end of the disease, and the number of patients was reduced dramatically and the building was converted into a general hospital.

BAKER HOUSE
Baker House, located at 362 Memorial Drive, is a coed dormitory at MIT designed by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto in 19471948 and built in 1949 Its distinctive design has an undulating shape which allows most rooms a view of the Charles River, and gives many of the rooms a wedge-shaped layout. The dining hall features a "moon garden" roof that is also very distinctive. Aalto also designed furniture for the rooms. Baker House was renovated for its fiftieth anniversary, modernizing the plumbing, telecommunications, and electrical systems and removing some of the interior changes made over the years that were not in Aalto's original design.

Syntsalo Town Hall

The Syntsalo Town Hall is a multifunction building complex town hall, shops, library and flats designed by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto for the municipality of Syntsalo in Central Finland.

Aalto received the commission after a design contest in 1949, and the building was completed in December 1951.
Aalto constructed the building into the wooded hillside of Syntsalo creating a three-story multi-purpose building surrounding an elevated courtyard.

The design of the Town Hall was influenced by both Finnish vernacular architecture and the humanist Italian renaissance.

DESIGN

It was the Italian Renaissance from which Aalto drew inspiration for the courtyard arrangement which informed the name of his original competition entry entitled "Curia." While the main program of the building is housed within a heavy brick envelope, the courtyard is bordered by a glassenclosed circulation space which can be linked to the model of an arcadebordered Piazza.

The town hall is crowned by the council chamber, a double-height space which is capped by the Aalto-designed "Butterfly" trusses.

The trusses support both the roof and the ceiling, creating airflow to manage condensation in the winter and heat in the summer.
The butterfly truss eliminates the need for multiple intermediate trusses. It also gives call to medieval and traditional styles. The council Chamber is approached from the main entrance hall a floor below via a ramp which wraps around the main tower structure under a row of clerestory ribbon windows.

Aalto constrained his material palate to one dominated by brick and accented by timber and copper. He saw his buildings as organisms made of up of individual cells. This principle informed Aalto's use of traditional building materials such as brick which is, by nature, cellular.
The bricks were even laid slightly off-line to create a dynamic and enlivened surface condition.

The massive brick envelope is punctuated by periods of vertical striation in the form of timber columns which evoke Syntsalo's setting in a heavily forested area.
Another distinctive feature at Syntsalo are the grass stairs which complement a conventional set of stairs adjacent to the tower council chambers. The grass stairs also evoke notions of ancient Greek and Italian architecture through the establishment of a form resembling a simple amphitheater condition.

Finlandia Hall is a concert hall with a congress wing in Helsinki, Finland, by Tlnlahti bay. The building was designed by Alvar Aalto. The work began in 1967 and was completed in 1971.

FINLANDIA HALL

The main features of the building's exterior are the great horizontal mass of the building proper and the towering auditorium that rises above it.
The main external wall material is Carrara marble and with copper roofs, which have acquired a green patina, and teak window frames.

 The marble continues in the interior, and is supplemented by details in hardwoods, and ceramic. Apart from the auditorium, the main feature of the interior is the shallow and broad 'Venetian' staircase leading from the ground-floor foyer to both the main auditorium and chamber music hall. Contemporary to the designing of the opera house in Essen, the design for Finlandia Hall shows some of the same features: asymmetricity, acoustical wall structures and the contrast between the marble balconies and cobalt blue walls in the concert hall interior.

The main concert hall, called Finlandia Hall, seats 1,700 and features Aalto's distinctive marble balconies and cobalt-blue walls with bent-wood decoration. The smaller auditorium, Helsinki Hall seats 340. The Congress Halls seat 450-900, depending on the configuration, and are equipped for simultaneous interpretation, television and press.

Paimio Chair
From the very beginning of his career Alvar Aalto experimented with materials, especially wood, and even applied for patents for the bending of wood as applied in his furniture designs and as acoustic screens in his buildings.
The Aaltos designed several different types of furniture and lamps for the Paimio Sanatorium (1929-33). The best known of the furniture pieces is his cantilevered birch wood Paimio Chair, which was specifically designed for tuberculosis patients to sit in for long hours each day. Aalto argued that the angle of the back of the chair was the perfect angle for the patient to breathe most easily. The design of the chair may have been influenced by Marcel Breuer's metal Wassily Chair, though Aalto was generally negative towards metal furniture.

Savoy Vase
The Aalto Vase, also known as 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. It became known as the Savoy vase because it was one of a range of custom furnishings and fixtures created by Alvar Aalto and Aino for the luxury Savoy restaurant in Helsinki that opened in 1937.

The vase has been manufactured in nearly a full spectrum of colours. The simplicity of the vase continues to be popular in the 21st century. Smaller versions of the vase, just as Aalto designed them with the seams visible and a slight curve at the base, are still produced by glasspressing at the Iittala glass factory in Iittala, Finland. Larger versions are made using Aalto's design, but without seams.

REFERENCES
WIKIPEDIA

CHAMBERS BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY

Alvaralto.fi

THANK YOU
Submitted by POOJA SINGH AR11021