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The diversity of timber in Alvar Aalto's architecture: forests, shelter and
safety
Teija Isohauta
Architectural Research Quarterly / Volume 17 / Issue 3-4 / December 2013, pp 269 - 280
DOI: 10.1017/S1359135514000086, Published online: 14 March 2014
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1359135514000086
How to cite this article:
Teija Isohauta (2013). The diversity of timber in Alvar Aalto's architecture: forests, shelter and safety . Architectural Research
Quarterly, 17, pp 269-280 doi:10.1017/S1359135514000086
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According to statistics for 2008, 78% of Finlands
surface area is covered by forest. That amounts
to 4 hectares per head of population.
1
Against a
background like this it is no surprise that wood
plays a vital role for the Finns, as a building
material and as a heat source. Wood is also used for
making furniture and household utensils. Birch
bark, for example, has antiseptic properties and
has been used for making footwear and rucksacks.
In the past, the forests also provided food and
clothes. With the arrival of industrialisation in the
mid-nineteenth century, wood began to be used
for making paper and, later on, during the Second
World War, the Finns learned how to make textile
bre from cellulose. The poverty and scarcity that
were predominant in Finland from the time it
acquired its independence in 1917 until more or
less the Second World War compelled people to be
innovative and inventive.
The forests have always had another role, too, one
that is poetic and mythical. The Finnish national
epic, the Kalevala, which is the Finnish equivalent of
Homers The Iliad and The Odyssey, was rst published
in 1849. The Kalevala is a story about the beginning
of the World, in which a giant oak tree covers it.
When the tree is eventually felled, the Heavens split
open and the World is born:
Kenp siit oksan otti,
se otti ikuisen onnen;
kenp siit latvan taittoi,
se taitoi ikuisen taian,
kenp lehvn leikkaeli,
se leikkoi ikuisen lemmen.
Or, in English:
Whosoeer a branch has taken,
Has obtained eternal welfare;
Who secures himself a tree-top,
He has gained the master magic;
Who the foliage has gathered,
Has delight that never ceases.
2
To the people of the north, existence itself meant
the forests and the security that they provided.
In the early twentieth century, architects, artists
and writers who were moulding an image of an
independent Finland drew on themes from the
forests and the old folk tales for their own work.
This was known as the National Romantic style
and can be compared with the Art Nouveau and
Jugendstil styles that were emerging elsewhere in
Europe at the same time. Alvar Aaltos teachers at
Helsinki University of Technology, Carolus Lindberg,
Armas Lindgren and Usko Nystrm, belonged to
that generation. Classical studies, combined with
the simple language of form found in vernacular
building, can be seen in Nordic Classicism and it
is these things which created the basis for Aaltos
architecture.
Aaltos own set of values are highlighted in his
description of the old wooden church at Keuruu
written for the daily newspaper Iltalehti:
The old church is built of wood. It is black in colour, a
beautiful soft black. Over the years the familiar tar has
become darker, time has given it a wonderful patina.
The church tower is noble in its proportions, the entire
church is harmonious in its form. It describes the
stylistic forms of a faraway civilised country, but seen
through the eyes of a child from the North. It is equally
familiar in all its styles. We can read its lineage and its
noble forms like an open book. The repetitive stamp of
manufacturing industry cannot be seen anywhere in
the details. Every mark left in the wood by the men who
made it tells us of their love for their work. Every shape
and every form tells us that the men who made it have
tried their hardest.
3
The Classical tradition
Finlands building stock is not old. In fact only
15% of its buildings were completed before 1950.
4

Finlands oldest timber buildings date from the
seventeenth century. They are mainly churches, but
one timber school building is still in existence.
5
It
is typical of Finnish wooden towns that they have
come into being over a long time scale and have
usually burned down at least once. Their vocabulary
of form has changed gradually and, despite their
uniformity, the skill of the individual carpenter
can still be seen.
6
At the beginning of the twentieth
century, the building stock in Jyvskyl, the town
where Aalto went to school, was mainly new and
mostly built in timber.
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Timber gave Aaltos buildings their own special character, aiding a
characteristic dialogue between geometry and organic form and
employed in deliberate counterpoint to prevailing Modernist tropes.
The diversity of timber in Alvar Aaltos
architecture: forests, shelter and safety
Teija Isohauta
doi: 10.1017/S1359135514000086
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Teija Isohauta The diversity of timber in Alvar Aaltos architecture
1 Jyvskyl Song
Festival, 1925
2 Villa Mairea
staircase, 193839
3 Muuratsalo sauna,
195354
1
2 3
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Log-framed buildings with interlocking joints are
typical of all countries in the northern hemisphere.
Aalto used logs especially in his sauna buildings.
The logs for the smoke sauna at Muuratsalo [3] came
from pine trees felled on the site and the sauna is
built using round logs in the traditional manner.
But Aalto departs from tradition in the pitched roof
which is built of logs stacked in the same direction.
The unusual decorative appearance of the door is
associated with Aaltos characteristic hierarchical
thinking and emphasises the importance of the
sauna. Aalto had this to say about his relationship
with wood as a material:
Wood, the original material from which older
buildings are made and the redeemer of architectural
spirit, is still in this century an original vernacular
material in many countries. Colleagues often talk
about wood as a natural material in my northern
country. This is not absolutely correct, people do
not build from wood in cold countries as much as
they used to, since almost every town in Finland has
burned to the ground at least once because of its
wooden buildings. I certainly do use wood, but not
for sentimental reasons, and wood does not represent
the major part of my work. However, as a timeless
material with ancient traditions, wood is always
viable, not just in terms of construction but also for
psychological and biological reasons.
10
Innovation
Aalto developed a liking for exhibition buildings
early on. One of his rst design tasks was a wooden
stage shaped like a shell for the Tampere Trade
Fair in 1922. He realised that temporary buildings
provided a splendid opportunity to try out new
ideas, new materials and new forms of construction.
To Aalto, different materials were vehicles for
expression. Aalto familiarised himself with wood in
an entirely new way when he started experimenting
on ways of bending timber in collaboration with
Otto Korhonen the joiner (18841935) in 1929. In
many ways, 1929 was a turning point in Aaltos life.
He became a member of CIAM (Congrs International
dArchitecture Moderne) and in collaboration with Erik
Bryggman (18911955) he designed the Turku 700th
anniversary exhibition, which was considered to be
a manifesto for Finnish Functionalism.
For the exhibition, Aalto designed a wooden stage
to be used for singing. The stage, with its repeated
trussed framework, presaged Aaltos interest in
industrialised component construction, also shown
in his competition entry for the Helsinki Fair (1934)
[4]. There was also a suite of Art Deco bedroom
furniture on show at the exhibition, with a chair
which had a seat made from bent plywood [5]. The
use of plywood in the Finnish furniture industry
was launched when the Schauman plywood mill
was founded in 1912.
11
Furniture made of plywood and bent metal
tubing became very popular, becoming symbols
of the modern way of life in Europe.
12
Aalto
experimented with metal tubing before he
managed to persuade timber to bend.
13
He was
fascinated by the plasticity which stemmed from
The fact that, as a young architect, Aalto used
timber a good deal was dictated by practice and
tradition. His earliest jobs were renovations of old
timber buildings and repairs to churches. The way
Aalto used wood links him rmly with the Classical
tradition. Timber arch motifs recur in both
domestic and church buildings. The arch motif was
applied particularly well in the entrance gates to
the Jyvskyl Song Festival (1924) [1].
The inuence of Classicism can be seen in the
capitals to the columns supporting the arches and
in the patterns of the decorative paintwork used on
the internal surfaces. What is new and idiosyncratic,
however, is that the gateway theme overlaps with
the trunks of the existing birch trees, so that the
trees grow through the structure, something which
is familiar from his later period.
In his church designs and renovations from the
1920s, Aalto paid close attention to the construction
of the ceilings. Aino and Alvar Aaltos interest
in Renaissance buildings can be seen from the
considerable number of photographs that have
survived from their honeymoon trip to Italy in
1924 and Ainos trip the previous year.
7
The timber
baldacchino above the altar that was added to
Viitasaari Church as part of the renovations in
1925 refers to the international Classical tradition.
The timber roof construction that appears in the
drawings for the Jms Church competition (1925) is
typical of old, rural Italian churches. There are also
Mediterranean precedents for the vaulted wooden
ceiling of Muurame Church.
The national tradition
Aalto was fascinated by the simplicity and
appropriateness of Finnish rural log buildings.
According to Aalto, his older colleague Gustaf
Strengell (18781937), who was the rst person to
speak out in Aaltos favour, had this to say about
the Riihitie house: I just came from Seurasaari
where I was looking at the Niemel farmhouse, and
I wanted to have another look at a modern version
of it.
8
Parallels have been drawn between the
Niemel farmhouse (17701844), which is part of the
Seurasaari Open-Air Museum, and the Villa Mairea
in particular.
9
Neither the Villa Mairea nor the Riihitie house
are of timber construction, but the atmosphere
and overall appearance of both buildings give
the impression that they are. The upper oor of
both is dominated by a dark wooden skin which
emphasises the horizontal lines of the buildings
and roots them rmly in the ground. The
balustrades on the upper oor of the Riihitie house
are made of solid timber with the bark peeled off,
which forms a contrast to the otherwise Modernist
language of form. There are also large plywood
surfaces in the interiors.
In the Villa Mairea, timber is used aesthetically
and appropriately for columns, surfaces and
canopies, at one and the same time. The result is
a profound interpretation of living as an integral
part of the natural environment and of cultural
history [2].
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the biological properties of wood, as is shown by
the several bent wood reliefs that have survived and
a text referring to biology where he writes: Nature,
biology, is rich and luxuriant in its forms; using
the same construction, the same tissue and the
same internal cell structure, it can achieve billions
of combinations each of which represents a high
standard of form.
14
The two most famous of Aaltos
chairs, the ring construction Paimio chair and the
spring construction easy chair, were made in 1932
and used in the ultra-modern, newly completed
Paimio Tuberculosis Sanatorium (192833). The
L-leg stacking stool was used both at Paimio and at
Viipuri (Vyborg) Library (192735, now in Russia).
The elasticity of wood and the language of form this
permitted rapidly drew Aalto onwards to design
large-scale applications.
Organic form
The ceiling construction of the lecture hall at
Viipuri (Vyborg) Library [6] represents Aaltos rst
broader application of plastically formed timber
construction. Aalto had won the architectural
competition for the Library with a design in
the Classical style but the construction project
was delayed and it turned into a building in the
European Modernist style. Aalto justied the form
of the lecture hall ceiling at Viipuri Library by its
4 Competition drawing
for Helsinki Fair, 1934
5 Hybrid Chair, 1932
4
5
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Nature
Aaltos strong orientation towards nature came
in the mid-1930s at a time when cultural life in
Finland was undergoing major changes. The
Swedish-speaking Finnish poet Elmer Diktonius
described it as, A wound that is smarting: for most
radical artists are conservative in relation to the
major issues of our time, while most of those who
are radicals in relation to the major issues of our
time are conservatives in relation to art.
19
Art was
seen purely as art; there were major breakthroughs
in Cubism and Surrealism. Aalto himself was not
without inuence on the latest trends. Artek, which
was founded in 1935 to sell Aaltos furniture, put
on exhibitions of the work of French Modernists,
such as Fernand Lger. The same year, Aalto helped
to found the lm club Projektio which showed the
Moholy-Nagy experimental lm Schwarz-Weiss-Grau
at its opening.
20

Aaltos experiments with wood and the distancing
of his architecture from the somewhat stereotyped
stylistic devices of Modern European architecture
occurred at the same time as he became active in
cultural life. In both the Riihitie house (193536)
and the Villa Mairea, there are the same kind of
associations so typical of Surrealism at that time
and the same kind of collage-like quality so typical
of Cubism.
The search for inspiration from nature can be
seen particularly in Aaltos exhibition pavilions
from the 1930s. The competition pseudonym for
the Finnish Pavilion for the 1937 World Exhibition
in Paris was Le bois est en marche and the building
acoustic properties, although the sound waves
shown on his illustrative drawings for the project
followed the movements of light waves.
15
The
interesting thing here is that Aalto brought up
psychological considerations in connection with the
acoustics,
16
referring specically to the atmosphere
created by the timber ceiling. He used the same idea
subsequently in several places.
As far as Aalto was concerned, organic form
implies an understanding of the fundamental
essence of natural materials, especially wood:
If we make something out of wood, which is no
longer suitable, it is no longer wood. It is no longer
a material that people like. I have tried to get big
sculptural forms from wood without destroying its
biological nature. That in its own way is also a matter
of exibility. It is not very remote from the exibility of
genuine architectural creations.
17
Stone, too, is an organic material. Aalto tried to
bring out the natural shapes of stone in his later
work:
Stone is a product of nature, too, though much older
than the trees which grow all around us. But you
cannot handle these ancient materials unless you have
a very light touch. Different degrees of porosity call
for different architectural forms. Perhaps biological
qualities are not as obvious in stone as they are in
wood, but they certainly are there. I have seen marble
facades that looked as though they were made of white
lead, because the nature of the material has been
misunderstood.
18
6 Viipuri Library,
193335
6
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industrialisation progressed, so did mass-
production methods. A standardisation committee
was formed in Finland in 1919 and, in 1924, the
social democratic administration published the
rst standard house type plans, which had a
Classical avour. In 1928, Aaltos Swedish friend
and colleague, Sven Markelius, delivered a lecture
in Turku on aims for rationalisation in interior
design and Aalto himself began designing standard
furniture and building components for series
production in 1929. The following year he visited
the Die Wohnung fr das Existenzminimum

exhibition
in Frankfurt.
22
Seeing the exhibition led to a more
serious consideration of housing issues.
Rationalist housing solutions in line with
Functionalist ideas were seen for the rst time
in Aaltos work in the Tapanitalo building in
Turku (192728), which later became known as
the standard apartment building. The staff ats
at Paimio Sanatorium and the residential area for
the Sunila pulp mill demonstrate Aaltos views on
the Rationalist style. They were both modern slab
blocks, but each had a free plan following the lines
of the terrain.
A book by the Frenchman Alexis Carrel with
the English title Man, the Unknown was published
in Swedish in 1936. In it, Carrel criticised the
dominance of science and technology and
emphasised the importance of anthropology in
was carefully located among the trees of the
Trocadro park [7]. The amoeba-shaped plan
form of the Lapua Forest Pavilion (1938) is a direct
metaphor for a tree stump. The Finnish Pavilion
at the 1939 World Exhibition in New York was
located on a small stretch of land in a huge hall
for which Aalto designed a space within a space.
The three-storey undulating, or wavy (aalto is the
Finnish word for wave) wooden facade was turned
inside out. It was a comprehensive, holistic design
where the Finnish forest and wood-processing
industry was shown in photographs and where
small objects, from skis to wooden propellers, were
displayed as a uniform collage. Kysti lander has
compared the Finnish Pavilion in New York to the
unrestricted plasticity of Borromini.
21
The battle between radical and nationalist forces
during the 1930s persuaded many artists to look
deep into the Finnish soul. To Aalto, it meant
the adoption of metaphors for nature and the
adaptation of wood as a material in architecture
and industrial mass production, in a variety of
different ways.
Standard, function and exibility
The idea of the architect taking an active role in
society as a catalyst for cultural and economic
development that came with International
Modernism struck a chord with Aalto. As
7 Finnish Pavilion in
Paris World
Exhibition, 1937
7
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(Vyborg), the second most important city in Finland.
In 1940, MIT offered Aalto a visiting professorship
which was funded by the Bemis Foundation.
Industrially prefabricated timber houses were a
specic interest of the Bemis Foundation.
28
One
of the rst things Aalto began to do in the United
States was to concentrate on rebuilding in Finland
and he suggested building a kind of experimental
town called An American town in Finland. In
connection with this, Aalto produced a series of
drawings which clarify his ideas about housing
design based on exibility.
29
The project collapsed
when Finland became an ally of Germany during
the Continuation War (194144), her second war
with the Soviet Union.
Aalto was extremely active during the war, for
example he was actively involved in setting up
the SAFA (Finnish Association of Architects) Ofce
for Reconstruction. The aims of this were to build
houses for those who had lost their homes in the
war while halting temporary prefab building and
raising the standard of industrially manufactured
houses. Aalto continued the development of the
range of timber houses made at the factory that had
been established in Varkaus in 1940. This consisted
of a series of almost fty house types known
collectively as the AA-system. Not all of these were
actually manufactured but the number tells us
something about Aaltos interest in the topic. AA-
thinking about peoples physical and spiritual
wellbeing.
23
At the same time, Aalto began using the
expression exible standardisation:
I have previously claimed that the worlds best
standardisation committee is nature itself, but in
nature, standardisation is focused primarily and
almost solely on the smallest possible units, cells. This
results in millions of exible systems in which nothing
is stiff and stereotyped, giving immense richness and
constant variety in organically growing forms. We
have to tread the same path towards standardisation
in architecture.
24
Aaltos collaboration with the Ahlstrm company
began when he became acquainted with Harry
and Maire Gullichsen.
25
In 1936, he designed a
masterplan for the companys Varkaus mill and
also presented his own proposals for building a
residential area for the staff in order to resolve
staff housing problems.
26
The rst house built of
prefabricated wooden elements (type A) was made
the following year in the Ahlstrm planing mill
and then erected in the Savonmki housing area.
Subsequently, a number of type-C houses were built,
which began to be advertised as type-A houses.
27
Historically, the development work on timber
houses occurred at just the right moment. The
Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union
(19391940) ended with Finland ceding a large area
of territory, which included the city of Viipuri
8 Otaniemi Sports
Hall, 194852
8
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9
10
9 In the Villa Mairea
sauna, 193839,
similar rainwater
gutters were used as
in Kuusela housing,
1944
10 Varkaus sawmill,
194445
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rainwater gutters made in the traditional way from
hollowed out logs.
Quite apart from the existence of Karelian wood
architecture, Aalto had his own interpretation of
the romance of building with logs and combined it
with organic form and exible standards. He wrote:
[] besides the actual decoration and ornamentation,
this architecture has another culture of form that has
its own ornamental nature and is livelier right from
the roots upwards. It is based mainly on construction,
bonding and binding, and the joints used in furniture,
for example. In this context it is a special art that
is close to nature. In the same way as the buildings
themselves, Karelian furniture is based on growing
wood. While the building uses wood as a standard
material for the structure, furniture uses smaller
wood sections with richer forms containing knots and
special, often unforeseen shapes. The choice is there
in the logical and ecological aspects of its beauty
solid, heavy logs for the building and knotty, exible
branches for furniture and movable objects.
32
This admiration for using a single material comes
across particularly well in the renovations to the
Varkaus sawmill in 1944 [10]. Aaltos characteristic
optimism and condence in the future can be seen
in the architecture of the sawmill. The wavy-edged
elevation continues where the interior elevation
of the New York Pavilion left off. There is nothing
historicist about the vocabulary of form used for
the sawmill, it is an artistic interpretation of the
romance of building with logs, which combines
warmth with sculptural quality.
Ornament
When everything is rationed and the wartime
atmosphere is depressing, how can the architect spend
his time? In the same way as I did leading those forest
work-camps for refugees, cutting wood and playing
like a child. But I think it kept me sane. Perhaps other
people had to accomplish tougher deeds, but I needed
this sort of safety valve.
33
Aalto was never a Modernist in the sense that he
denied the existence of history. He even used the very
traditional vernacular Finnish fence made of woven
branches during the 1930s. Plaited wood appears in
the pavilion for the Paris World Exhibition, in the
Villa Mairea and in the Sunila bus shelter, albeit a
very sophisticated version of the vernacular that even
suggests the Japanese tradition.
34
For Aalto, fences, canopies and balustrades of
various kinds were typical devices for adding a drop
of humanity to modern housing. They give the
buildings a reference to the continuum of history
and at the same time they impart an aesthetic
rhythm to the building and the landscape. This
comes across well in the terraced housing for
engineers at Sunila (1937) and in the patio housing
at Kauttua (193739). At the detail level, the change
in Aaltos public buildings constructed in the 1950s
is less than one might imagine.
The changes in society that took place after the
war had the effect of industrialising a Finland that
had previously been predominantly agricultural
and also of developing the education system. This
houses were built in various places including the
Knnpelto area in Varkaus and an area of housing
for ex-servicemen in Tampere. After the war, the
Finnish wood-processing industry developed
rapidly and a number of rms were set up to make
prefabricated houses and structural components.
The AA-system was marketed by a company called
Puurakenne which also produced the HP-trusses
that Aalto used in the Otaniemi Sports Hall,
completed in 1952 for the Helsinki Olympics [8].
Aaltos last building made of prefabricated timber
elements was assembled for the Venice Biennale in
1956. The elements were made by Ahlstrm at the
Varkaus mill. The original idea was to construct a
pavilion for displaying Finnish art that could be put
together, taken apart and reassembled. However,
because of the extremely tight timetable, the
pavilion had to be nailed permanently together, but
it is still in use today.
The romance of building with logs
During the interim peace between the Winter War
and the Continuation War, there was considerable
enthusiasm for the buildings of Karelia on both
sides of Finlands eastern border. The reason was
clearly political and Aalto was one of those who not
only wrote about the subject but also visited Aunus
to look at old Karelian buildings. Typical of these
were their round-log construction, their long steep
roof slopes and their decorated window bars.
During the war, the front line remained in the
same position for long periods and the soldiers had
the time to build more comfortable surroundings
for themselves. These temporary cut-and-cover
shelters were known as dugouts. They were usually
built of round logs with the bark still on, and were
shaped to t in with natural forms and they often
had turf roofs. Frequently, well-known architects
contributed to their design.
30

The Romantic nature of post-war architecture was
inuenced both by these dugouts and by Karelian
buildings. In places, the building stock in Finland
had been totally destroyed because the Germans
operated a scorched-earth policy as they withdrew
from Lapland in 1945.
31
The idea of romance
invoked was psychological insofar as the Finns
looked further back in their history. The radicalism
of the 1920s and 1930s and the clear simple forms
that came with it did not provide the feeling of
warmth the Finns longed for during the scarcities
and privations of the post-war period.
The impact of the times can be seen in Aaltos
work, partly because of the scarcity of materials, in
his use of timber for both construction and details.
For example, there is the use of logs in gutter details
for the Villa Mairea sauna (193839) and similarly
at the Kuusela housing (1944) [9], the apartment
buildings in Kittil (1943), the turf roof with its
long slopes in the sauna building at Kauttua (1944),
and the use of timber with the bark left on for the
cladding of the Artek Pavilion at Hedemora (1945).
Wartime apartment building also suffered from
rationing. In Aaltos design for the three-storey
Kuusela slab blocks built at Sunila (1944), he used
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of Jyvskyl and in the council chamber at
Syntsalo Town Hall where, in both projects,
ones attention is drawn to the massive wooden
roof trusses. The space becomes almost tangible
through the use of these wooden elements.
There are a great many Aalto details in timber
and, by examining them, it is possible to follow
their development curve. For example, timber stair
handrails with plastic forms appear for the rst
time in Viipuri (Vyborg) Library and the New York
Pavilion [11], and are repeated frequently in Aaltos
red-brick buildings, such as MIT and Syntsalo
Town Hall. These handrails are shaped to t the
hand, and the shine and strong colour of the wood
contrasts with the red brick.
Metaphor
If love for something can be measured by the
number of nicknames it has, the best-loved of all
the tree species growing in Finland must be the
pine. The name given to the ancient red pines
growing in the primeval forests of Karelia that are
used for making ne oorboards is Karjalan puna
honka. Petj is the name of another large pine,
which is also used to refer to the toughness and
persistence of the Finns. Pine forests have a glow of
their own and the Villa Mairea and the Muuratsalo
Experimental House are surrounded by trees with
red trunks which glow in the low evening sunshine.
The birch with its white trunk is historically
considered to be feminine and its Latin name betula
means virginity. Birch logs are the best for heating
the sauna, and birch twigs are used for making
sauna whisks.
36
Aalto used birch as a material for
furniture and in Aaltos time plywood was made
called for a large volume of new construction and
Aalto won several architectural competitions for
public buildings.
35
His projects in response to these
wins were constructed in red brick. In Aaltos hands,
the symbolism and ornamentation traditionally
associated with public buildings was given a new
interpretation. The general form and massing of
the buildings communicated the idea of public-
ness while the materials, which were treated like
ornamentation, imparted a human touch. In public
buildings where the interiors had to have special
acoustic properties, or where the interior space had
to be divided up and given some character, timber
was used as a prominent material. In Aaltos lecture
halls, theatres and concert halls, for example, there
are numerous examples of timber being used as a
formal motif. He used timber for plastic surfaces
in, for example, the main hall at the House of
Culture in Helsinki and as a relief cladding in the
Institute of International Education in New York.
Repeated reective surfaces are used for the ceiling
panels in the chamber music hall at Finlandia Hall,
for instance.
Dividing up space using wooden grilles of
various kinds was also typical for Aalto. The
staircases in the main building at the University
of Jyvskyl are a good example of this, as too,
is the Villa Mairea. Using timber louvres makes
spaces overlap, producing Aaltos characteristic
spatial ow. He also used timber to give a strong
character to simple spaces. This happens, for
example, in the refectory at the University
11 Finnish Pavilion in
New York World Fair,
1939
11
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materials. Tree trunks dissolve into the facade of the
Congress Wing at Finlandia Hall. In the same way,
the forest comes right into the buildings when Aalto
lters the light through wooden blinds and grilles of
various kinds, an effect that was certainly familiar to
Aalto from childhood skiing trips in the forest.
One of Aaltos last private houses was the Villa
Kokkonen, a timber house designed for the
composer Joonas Kokkonen with a dark nish
(196769). It was based on the idea that composing
is an introspective activity where the composer
walks around and sits down at the piano from time
to time to pick out a melody and then makes a note
of it. The house is like a kantele (a Finnish musical
instrument not unlike a dulcimer) playing in the
middle of the forest. The most startling detail in
the house is the white-painted entrance canopy
which all too easily can be interpreted as the
jawbone of a pike.
38
Aaltos buildings are so sensual and associative
that there is an ever-present danger of over-
interpretation. The variety of ways in which wood
is used gives them their own special character in
the history of modern architecture. As a material,
wood improves the quality and increases the feeling
of aesthetic wellbeing. Aaltos way of using timber
rhythmically creates a system for space owing in
different directions, and as a metaphor it opens up
different opportunities for experiencing the space.
Notes
1. Finnish Forest Research Institute
(Metla) statistics: <http://www.
metla./metinfo/tilasto/julkaisut/
mtt/index.html> [accessed
01.12.13].
2. Elias Lnnrot, Kalevala (1849).
Available online, see: <http://www.
gutenberg.org/les/7000/7000-
h/7000-h.htm> [accessed 01.12.13],
Second Rune, lines 19196.
Translation by John Martin
Crawford (1888), also available
through Project Gutenberg.
3. Alvar Aalto, Vanhat ja uudet
kirkkomme [Our Old and New
Churches], Iltalehti (14.12.1921).
Reprinted in Gran Schildt, Alvar
Aalto In His Own Words (London:
Rizzoli, 1997).
4. <http://www.tilastokeskus.
/til/rakke/2012/
rakke_2012_2013-05-24_.pdf>
[accessed 01.12.13].
5. The oldest wooden church still
standing in Finland is Vyri
Church which dates from 1626.
The Kokkola Pedagogy School
building dates from 1696.
6. Elisa El Harouny, Historiallinen
puukaupunki suojelukohteena ja
elinympristn [The Historic Wooden
Town as a Cultural Heritage Site and
a Living Environment], unpublished
Ph.D. thesis, Oulu University, 2008.
7. The photographs from Aaltos
family albums are reproduced
in the archives of the Alvar Aalto
Museum. Photos from the trips
to Italy can be found in the
Eurooppa album.
8. Gran Schildt, Alvar Aalto: The
Decisive Years (New York: Rizzoli,
1986).
9. Georg Grotenfeldt, Perinne ja
uudistuminen Alvar Aallon tapa
kytt puuta: Puu taipuu [Tradition
and Renewing: Alvar Aaltos Way of
using Timber] (Helsinki: Alvar Aalto
Foundation, 2010).
10. Karl Fleig, Alvar Aalto Synopsis:
Painting, Architecture, Sculpture
(Basel: Birkhuser, 1980).
11. Per Schybergson, Juuret metsss
Schauman 18831983 [A History
of the Schauman Plywood Company,
Published to Mark its Centenary]
(Jyvskyl: Schauman, 1983).
12. For example, the Mies van der
Rohe MR10 chair, 1927, the
Marcel Breuer B32 and B33 chairs,
192829 and the Eileen Gray E1027
table, 1929.
13. Patent no. 18256 granted 1938,
for a method of bending wood to
form rings and springs; patent no.
18666 granted 1940, for the L-leg;
patent no. 23421 granted 1949, for
the Y-leg; patent no. 28191 granted
1956, for the X-leg.
14. Alvar Aalto, Rationalism and
Man, lecture given to the Swedish
Society of Industrial Designers on
9 May 1935. Published in Schildt,
Alvar Aalto in His Own Words.
15. AAM, Drawings Archive, sign.
43480.
16. Viipurin kirjasto, facsimile of
original structural specication,
printed 1935, Hakapaino Oy, 1997.
17. Alvar Aalto, Ihmemaa Suomi
[Wonderland Finland],
transcription of a lecture given
by Aalto in London, 20 June 1950.
Published in Schildt, Alvar Aalto in
His Own Words.
18. Fleig, Alvar Aalto Synopsis.
19. Salme Sarajas-Korte, Se oli 30-lukua
[It was the 1930s] (exhibition
catalogue), (Helsinki: Finnish
Academy of Fine Arts, 1977).
20. Aalto became acquainted with
Moholy-Nagy in 1929 and Lger in
1933, through CIAM.
21. Kysti lander, Suomen taiteen
vuosikirja, Suomen arkkitehtuurin
kolmas mestari [The Yearbook of
Finnish Art: The Third Master of
Finnish Architecture] (Helsinki:
Finnish Academy of Fine Arts,
1947). lander was the founder of
Finnish Architecture Museum and
its rst curator.
22. Elina Standertskjld, Alvar Aalto
and Standardism in The Yearbook
of Finnish Architecture (Helsinki:
Acanthus, 1992).
23. Gran Schildt stresses the
exclusively from birch. To provide contrast and
decoration, Aalto used wild apple trees, not for their
fruit but for their blossom.
37
Aaltos use of timber is closely associated with
a characteristic dialogue between geometry and
organic form in his work. He employed timber in
deliberate counterpoint to the Modernist geometric
style, in processed form as at the Villa Mairea and
the New York Pavilion, or unprocessed as in the
Lapua Forest Pavilion and the Muuratsalo sauna.
Nature, wood and forests also appear in Aaltos
work as metaphors, where the material differs but
the language of form associated with wood remains
in place. The tree stump motif familiar from the
Lapua Forest Pavilion is repeated in the Essen Opera
House. The load-bearing concrete column in the
foyer of the main building at the University of
Jyvskyl looks like a tree trunk and the concrete
roof beams of Riola Church look like enlargements
of the framework of Aaltos spring chair. Aaltos
interpretations progress from one material to
another. There are ceramic tiles shaped like rods
alongside the numerous cross-section drawings of
timber panelling and, in that context, one cannot
help comparing them to tree bark. What about the
cast-bronze door handle at the Villa Mairea, which
resembles the branch of a tree?
Aaltos architecture and design is based on the
recycling of ideas and on variation in forms and
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importance of Carrel and without
doubt his attitude and emphases
are the same as in Aaltos writings
at that time. The book was
published in Finnish in 1937.
24. Alvar Aalto, Rakenteitten ja
aineitten vaikutus nykyaikaiseen
rakennustaiteeseen, transcription
from a lecture given by Aalto in
Oslo, date unknown, published in
Arkkitehti, 5 (1938), 12931.
25. Maire Gullichsen was the
daughter of one of the directors
of A. Ahlstrm Ltd and her
husband Harry became a director
in 1931. They became acquainted
with Aalto in 1935, when Artek
was founded.
26. Alvar Aalto, Warkauden
asuntokysymyksen
ratkaisumahdollisuuksia [Ways
of Resolving the Housing Issue in
Varkaus], transcription from
a lecture given by Aalto on 19
October 1936. Published in
Schildt, Alvar Aalto in His Own
Words.
27. Mervi Savolainen, Tehtaan
huoneista omaan kotiin, Teollisuuden
asuntoarkkitehtuuria Varkaudessa
191040-luvulla [From Factory
Premises to Own Home: Industrial
Housing in Varkaus 191040].
Diploma dissertation, Aalto
University, Department of
Architecture, Helsinki, 1993.
28. Writers memos from the
MIT archives 1998, further
information on the background
to the Bemis Foundation: http://
libraries.mit.edu/archives/
research/collections/collections-ac/
pdf/ac302.pdf [accessed 01.12.13].
29. AAM, Drawings Archive, sign. 88
733. E.g. diagram of a site showing
external variables.
30. Erkki Helamaa, 40-luku, korsujen
ja jlleenrakentamisen vuosikymmen
(exhibition catalogue) (Helsinki:
Finnish Architecture Museum and
Alvar Aalto Museum, 1983).
31. Aaltos major work in Lapland
was the Rovaniemi masterplan.
32 Aalto, Alvar, Karjalan rakennustaide
(Karelian architecture) in Uusi Suomi,
2 November (1941). Reprinted
in Schildt, Alvar Aalto in His Own
Words, 1997.
33. Aalto, Ihmemaa Suomi
(Wonderland Finland).
34. Aalto had become friends with
the Japanese ambassador and he
had on his bookshelves a number
of books dealing with traditional
Japanese architecture.
35. For example, the National
Pensions Institute, 1949,
masterplan for Helsinki University
of Technology at Otaniemi, 1949,
Syntsalo Town Hall, 1949,
Lahti church competition, 1950,
Rautatalo building, 1951, Jyvskyl
Institute of Pedagogics, now the
University of Jyvskyl, 1951.
36. In medieval Finnish stone
churches, Adam and Eves g
leaves were replaced by bunches
of birch twigs.
37. Louna Lahti, interviews from
the book Ex intimo Alvar Aalto
Aikalaisten silmin (Atena: Jyvskyl,
1997).
38. The most important character
in the Kalevala is Vinminen,
who holds power by singing and
recitation. His instrument is a
kantele made from the jawbone of
a pike.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Nicholas Mayow for the
English translation.
Illustration credits
arq gratefully acknowledges:
AAM, 7
AAM/ Eino Mkinen: 8
AAM/foto Roos: 10
AAM/Maija Holma: 2, 3, 5
AAM/Pijnne: 1
AAM, sign. 68/127: 4
AAM, sign. 68/1407: 11
AAM, sign. 84/646: 9
The Restoration of Viipuri Library/
Tapio Mustonen: 6
Biography
Teija Isohauta holds an MA from
Jyvskyl University and worked
in the Alvar Aalto Museum as a
curator from 1986 until 2009.
Her survey of Aaltos libraries was
published in Architecture to Read by
Gangemi in 2003. Her latest interest
involves exploring Aaltos concept
of landscape. An exhibition on that
theme, Shifting Contours, was held at
the Alvar Aalto Museum at 2009. She
now works as a freelance curator
and writer.
Authors address
teija@periferiadesign.