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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
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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
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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
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