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RSA Journal is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to RSA Journal. RSA Journal, Vol. 141, No. 5435 (December 1992), pp. 59-60. Aalto, together with that other great Finn, sibelius, represents Finland's most distinguished contribution to the culture of the 20th century.
RSA Journal is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to RSA Journal. RSA Journal, Vol. 141, No. 5435 (December 1992), pp. 59-60. Aalto, together with that other great Finn, sibelius, represents Finland's most distinguished contribution to the culture of the 20th century.
RSA Journal is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to RSA Journal. RSA Journal, Vol. 141, No. 5435 (December 1992), pp. 59-60. Aalto, together with that other great Finn, sibelius, represents Finland's most distinguished contribution to the culture of the 20th century.
Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to RSA Journal.
http://www.jstor.org Harmonious Finn Author(s): ALAN IRVINE Source: RSA Journal, Vol. 141, No. 5435 (December 1992), pp. 59-60 Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41378190 Accessed: 13-08-2014 15:24 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 168.176.138.83 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 15:24:12 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SPECTRUM Harmonious Finn MYSTERY OF FORM: ARCHITECTURE OF ALVAR AALTO Finnish Institute , London WCi 14 September-30 October 1992 Fortunate Finns. For such a small country, they are blessed with a natural environment that is unique in Europe. To their credit, their architects have respected this gift and have succeeded in creating an architectural tradition, integrating the natural world with the necessities of urban development, that is the envy of their neighbours. Not surprisingly, these circumstances have produced an architect of genius to join that great triumvirate of Corbusier, Wright and Mies van der Rohe. Aalto, together with that other great Finn, Sibelius, represents Finland's most distinguished contribution to the culture of the 20th century. Both reflect in their work a deep understanding and appreciation of the need for harmony between man and his environment; totally Finnish, yet worldly in their appeal to the senses. In Aalto (who was elected an Honorary Royal Designer for Industry in 1947) the Finns had an architect who exemplified the tradition of the universal man, able to demonstrate his mastery in fields ranging across town planning, architecture, industrial design, furniture, and not least, exquisite and timeless designs for glass. One is struck afresh by Aalto's ability to integrate structure, form and space into one single coherent experi- ence, in which every detail from the handle of a door, the form and volumes of the building, and the landscaping, bears his indelible signature. How different from so many architects one could name who, having designed the building, trawl through manufacturers' catalogues, not of materials but of products, to fit out the interiors. Architecture is the most difficult art to display. Unlike painting in which both the creator and critic confront and observe, buildings require to be walked through and around, in changing seasons, in different atmospheres and varying light. Photographs and plans can only achieve second best, requiring interpretation and specialist knowledge. Even film is a poor substitute for the real experience. But needs must. In this small and elegant exhibition, the organisers eschewed the Alvar Aalto's Library in Viipuri 1930-35. Photograph, Alan Irvine, 1959. RSA JOURNAL, DECEMBER 1992 59 This content downloaded from 168.176.138.83 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 15:24:12 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SPECTRUM conventional method of showing each project in chronologi- cal order. Instead, they interpreted Aalto's ideas through a series of specific themes ranging from Nature and Building, The Sanatorium, The City, The Memorial, etc. This thematic arrangement works well for the non-specialist, in that Aalto's treatment of light, form, structure and environ- ment is seen in different applications to a variety of projects. A minor drawback is that photographs of the same building are separated and appear on different groups of panels. In his writing on architecture, Aalto gives due importance to the role of intuition, but only as submitted to and following from a deep analysis of the problem, which then frees the subconscious and unlocks the creative process. 'I forget the entire mass of problems for a while, after the atmosphere of the job and the innumerable different requirements have sunk into my subconscious . . . I just draw by instinct . . . and in this way, the main idea takes shape, a kind of universal substance which helps me to bring the contradictory component problems into harmony.' This harmony in his work derives from a reverence for his native land; perhaps it is the reason why some of his later projects outside Finland seem less successful. The House of Culture in Helsinki seems superior to the Cultural Centre in Wolfsberg, Germany. Similarly, the high-rise apartment blocks in Bremen 1958, and Lucerne 1965, whilst assured and inventive in their forms, are diminished by a lack of close integration with their surroundings, an integration that is such a remarkably successful aspect of his work in Finland. Other Finnish buildings, such as the exquisite Town Hall at Syntsalo 1950, are almost impossible to imagine translated to another setting in another country. But even in Finland there is the occasional unhappy exception, as in his design for the office building by the harbour in Helsinki i960, with its heavily gridded and deeply recessed exterior. It is faced, inexplicably, with imported white Carrara marble, looking oddly incongruous in its setting. In his postwar work - he died in 1976 aged 78 - Aalto himself spoke of his retreat from the rigidity of Miesian forms, and this is nowhere better illustrated than in his designs for churches, as for example at Imatra 1956. Its asymmetry is directly related to the liturgical rituals of the Lutheran Church, and extends to the vertical profiles of the spaces, both internally and externally. As always, the study of accoustics was a major element in determining the design, resulting in complex curvature for walls, windows, and most notably, ceilings. This has direct links with one of his first and perhaps most famous buildings, the Library at Viipuri 1926, where the Bauhaus-like form of the exterior is suddenly counterpointed by the famous undulating timber ceiling of the lecture room. There are generations of postwar architects for whom this building, through photographs, became an influential image. 60 For years it was thought lost to the world, deep in the prohibited area of the Russian-annexed province of Karelia. In the 1960s it was referred to in Girsberger's definitive Alvar Aalto , Zurich 1963, as having been 'totally destroyed in the Russo-Finnish war'. Happily this was not so. I saw it myself on a clandestine visit in 1959; somewhat crudely restored, but functioning, and as inspirational as expected. Perhaps in the new political climate, it will once more become an essential place of pilgrimage for those architects who cherish Aalto's work and admire this brave and beautiful country. ALAN IRVINE, RDI, ARIBA Alan Irvine is an architect specialising in museum and exhibition design Contagious talent ENID MARX AND HER CIRCLE Sally Hunter Fine Art, Halkin Arcade, London SWi 7-30 October Textile designer, wood engraver, lino cutter, stamp designer, writer and illustrator; a career spanning 70 years and a ninetieth birthday: Enid Marx's exhibition at Sally Hunter Fine Art was a double celebration. The title Enid Marx and her circle refered to work by her friends and contemporaries displayed in the exhibition. The circle here (it could have contained many more) included Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher who gave Marco her first job as an apprentice in their textile studio in 1925; Norah Braden and Katherine Pleydell Bouverie whose ceramics were sold beside Marco's printed fabrics and Edward Bawden's linocut wallpapers at Muriel Rose's Little Gallery throughout the 1930s. As well as Bawden, her male contemporaries were represented by Eric Ravilious, Barnett Freedman and Henry Moore who with her formed part of the contagious 'outbreak of talent' at the Royal College of Art in the 1920s. From childhood Enid Marx (Marco to her friends) seems to have been steered, and steered herself, towards a design career. As a child she collected ribbon samples from the local haberdasher, preferring the wide fancy ribbons, but not refusing the plain narrow ones for fear of not getting any. Before the First World War she frequently travelled with her family in Europe, where she absorbed the excitement of new art movements developing in France and Germany. School was at Roedean during a particularly enlightened period: life drawing, pattern printing, carpentry and she was allowed to draw almost full time in her final year. After Roedean she went on o the Central School of Art for what would now be a foundation year and then to the RS A JOURNAL, DECEMBER 1992 This content downloaded from 168.176.138.83 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 15:24:12 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions