Common Ground - An Interview With Juhani Pallasmaa - WALL - 2009 - Journal of Architectural Education - Wiley Online Library

10/18/21, 12:46 PM Common Ground: An Interview with Juhani Pallasmaa - WALL - 2009 - Journal of Architectural Education - Wiley Online
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Journal of Architectural Education / Volume 63, Issue 1 / p. 75-79

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Common Ground: An Interview with Juhani Pallasmaa
SCOTT WHELAND WALL,
First published: 05 October 2009

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1531-314X.2009.01030.x
Juhani Pallasmaa conceives and writes his articles, letters, even emails entirely in English and
entirely by hand. He does not operate in the theoretical realm in the Finnish language, in
large part because the concepts with which he is dealing are of currency and import to an
audience fluent in English rather than Finnish. For Finns, explanations have always been
secondary to actions. And yet, for more than twenty-five years Pallasmaa has sought to
enter into a direct discourse with an English-speaking audience. But it is really only in the
past decade, with the original publication of The Eyes of the Skin in 1995, that Juhani
Pallasmaa has emerged as an influential thinker in the professional and educational realm
of the architect.
The common Finnish aphorism, vääntää rautalangasta, literally “to bend it from the iron
wire,” means to give meaningful expression to something tangible, derived from an
elemental state. For Finns, and thus for Pallasmaa, “to bend [a thing] from the iron wire”
implies that all things begin from an action, not a word, and that “bending” is a moral
explication of a way of making architecture from a fundamental beginning – a place without
words, only action.
And yet, with words, here and elsewhere, Pallasmaa bends language into a consistent form –
an imperative that has developed over years of thought and experience, proposition and
experiment – a poetic that has become a remarkable and carefully measured linguistic
aesthetic that demands action.
Juhani Pallasmaa is a Finnish architect, professor and former Dean of the Helsinki University
of Technology’s Faculty of Architecture, an Honorary Fellow of the AIA, and an International
Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, as well as a former Director of the Finnish
Museum of Architecture in Helsinki. This interview was conducted by Scott Wall, Director of
the School of Architecture at the University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design
on March 5th, 2009 during Professor Pallasmaa’s visit as the 2009 Church Memorial
Lecturer.
SW: The questions I have are focused on the role played by the vernacular and that of
regional architectures in contemporary architectural thought and practice.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1531-314X.2009.01030.x 1/9
10/18/21, 12:46 PM Common Ground: An Interview with Juhani Pallasmaa - WALL - 2009 - Journal of Architectural Education - Wiley Online Li…
In your book, The Eyes of the Skin, you wrote that “construction in traditional cultures is
guided by the body in the same way that a bird shapes its nest -- by movement. And these
indigenous architectures seem to be born of the muscular and haptic senses more than the
eye.” Are there architects working today who are exploring similar ideas of the haptic and
muscular? How do they develop their work?*
JP: This is a subject matter that I am discussing in my new book, The Thinking Hand, where I
categorize knowledge into two categories – instrumental knowledge and existential
knowledge. These two types of knowledge co-exist in the architect’s work and should also
co-exist in architectural education. Instrumental knowledge is something that can be taught,
like mathematics or the sciences, because there is always a right and a wrong response or
answer in that category. Existential knowledge, which I consider more important in any
artistic endeavor, is based on a spontaneous grasp of the essences of the world and life. In
any education that’s much more difficult to train. That can be learned by life experience and
imitation, or rather, unconscious imitation, and that is why it is the personal contact that is
so important in any field of artistic education. In this personal contact you internalize
another person’s way of existing and you somehow also internalize a collection of embodied
reactions.
For me, to see how a person walks is just as important as to hear what he says. And the way
of walking says something very important about how this person exists in this world; it
reveals one’s humility and arrogance, timidity as well as pride. So there are areas of
knowledge that are embodied, and can only be transmitted through that same kind of
embodiment. I would say that any good architect, every really profound architect, works
with his body rather than his brain and is tied with the unconscious embodied traditions of
his craft.
SW:“Rather than,” or in conjunction with the brain?
JP: In conjunction, yes, but the emphasis is on the body in the existential sense. I think truly
profound architecture is always a reflection of one’s existential sense rather than verbal
ideas.
SW: In the context of The Eyes of the Skin, when you describe construction in traditional
cultures as guided by the body, do you feel as if architecture, as an expression of existential
knowledge is fundamental in both an architect’s education, and in the development of a
good architect’s work? Is that knowledge of, or understanding of that basic indigenous
method of construction an important component of that education or development?
JP: I meant to say earlier, that there are aspects in indigenous construction that proceed very
much unconsciously, without intellectually formulated goals. There is a lot for us to learn in
these traditions.
SW: Is that a function of pragmatism in the artistic that you see as a part of that?
JP: In the sense that there are certain aspects of architecture that are born through the very
process of making architecture, design and thinking about it and working with it, and even in
the collaboration between the one who executes the work and the architect. There is much
that is beyond and outside the drafting board. Those aspects are often forgotten or
neglected in architectural education, whereas, in the traditional way of construction they
were always present. There was no drafting board. Ever. Drafting and drawing entered
architecture in Michelangelo’s time, not earlier.
SW: I would like to follow that thought as I think you’ve just touched on another issue that is
significant – that schools of architecture may bear a certain responsibility for perpetuating
the ocular-centric tradition and a continued preference for the abstract rather than the real.
How might a school of architecture provoke an appreciation and desire for a sensorial
realism?*
(1)
[ Artist’s summer studio, Vänö Islands, 1970. The tiny studio is built of stones collected from
the construction site. The architect’s sketch is of the site in autumn colors during his first
visit to the site. ]
JP: Yes, well, I will first comment on your assumption. There are many layers in architectural
education and practice that emphasize the ocular essence of the craft. Unfortunately. Also
the way in which architecture is publicized nowadays and also revered as aestheticized
objects emphasizes and underlines the ocular reading.
As a teacher I have always tried to communicate the idea of architecture as existing to all of
our senses, and perhaps most importantly to the haptic sense. Anyone can understand that
the mechanics of the visual world is a totally fragmented, almost schizophrenic, reality in
which images are collaged upon other images without a sense of continuity. The existential
continuity of the world is primarily held or maintained by our haptic experience, and that
underlines the importance of the haptic realm.
Student exercises can well be geared toward activating the presence of the haptic or tactile
response. Especially in studio reviews this response can be discussed just as well as the
ocular. However, we are not used to doing this, and perhaps it is a bit more difficult to
imagine, but it is equally real.
The visual realm has been theorized and formalized, whereas the other modalities have not
been studied and verbalized in architecture. So it is rather difficult to speak of the sense of
smell in architecture with the same precision that we speak of geometry and the visual
properties of things.
SW: In some sense, you are describing the academic condition. But I must also assume, by
extension, that you have a collection of sense experiences or sense memories that come
from a catalogue of personal experiences of buildings. More specifically, how do you use
your own memories of the vernacular grounded in your own country?
(1a)
[]
JP: Well, if you are asking me personally, my answer is that my reactions and recollections
arise more out of situations of life, qualities of landscape, and light, and even a certain social
reality rather than from memories of particular architectures. My own sense of “Finnishness”
is grounded on a sense of landscape, language and cultural reality, but also partly on our
characteristic architectural traditions as well as images of other art forms. I’m not saying that
experiences of buildings would not be important, but I tend to think more of this existential
background.
SW: How so?
JP: Any meaningful work is built on a tradition.There is no sensible communication in human

culture without reference to a tradition. It is an unsurpassable reality. The wise architect
forgets his personal ambitions and works on the basis of what is there, what exists, and an
internalized sense of tradition. It is a much more satisfying feeling to understand or
experience that one has contributed something to a tradition, than being proud of having
invented something personal. Not long ago, I read a book of interviews of Balthus, the
creator of great eroticized paintings, and he points out that artists tend to aspire to express
themselves in their work. “In my view,” he says, “ such a painting that only expresses the
painter has not been worth painting.” A painting has to express the world and I think that, in
the same way, architecture needs to express the world, not somebody’s aesthetic opinions.
And in that sense, everything returns back to tradition and to what exists. And that also
implies the vernacular reality which is by far the more dominant in the world than any
architecture of today.
(2)
[ Architectural objects, 1998–. The architect made 26 variations of abstracted staircases, cast
in bronze, for an art exhibition in Helsinki. Some of the pieces appear as houses flattened
under immense pressure. The objects explore the archetypal essences of the stairway, and
of the opposite notions of rising and descending. ]
(2a.)
[]
SW: I’d like to get into that. I’m interested in how you responded to the sense experience of
building personally, on the one hand, and on the other, the way in which any individual
might engage the haptic or sense experiences of the world as a kind of tradition that’s
embedded in each of us. And yet, you hold off a bit on describing architectural memories as
a part of that process of engaging the haptic, but you are very specific when you speak
about the personal experiences that you bring to bear in the making of architecture.
JP: If I understand you correctly, I could, of course, list numerous personal encounters with
architecture, from the Karnak Temple that eliminates one’s sense of self completely, to the
subtleties of the Ryoanji Zen garden that works on one’s sense of imagination, etc., up to
Alvar Aalto, Frank Lloyd Wright or any one of the masters of today.
SW: Are you saying, then, that all of these experiences become part of a larger body of
sensory knowledge?
JP: Yes, that is exactly what I wanted to say. That what is meaningful in any creative work is
how one has integrated the elements and ingredients of one’s life experience into one’s
sense of self. Because that’s all that counts. One can start to analyze this into various
ingredients, and maybe architecturally specific experiences come out. But I would never
have them as a primary set of values or starting points.
SW: You touched on this point earlier and I would like to follow up on your perspective
regarding the tendency in contemporary global culture to aestheticize, even valorize, the
architectural experience.
JP: Yes, and to aestheticize, as if beauty or aesthetic qualities are something that can be
added to a product or a building. Those qualities arise from everything else. They are never
self-sufficient or autonomous. Joseph Brodsky criticizes Ezra Pound for having believed that
beauty can be targeted in art, and he makes the point that beauty is always the result of
other concerns, and often of very ordinary ones. It cannot be targeted. Aesthetic qualities
are essential – in fact, we can assume that aesthetic judgment precedes ethical judgment –
but aesthetic values are grounded on essential existential experiences.
(3)
[ Sámi Lapp Museum, Inari, 1998. The museum, which presents the survival strategies of
northern nature and Sámi culture located 200 miles north of the Polar Circle, attempts to
create a sense of a continued tradition without any concrete precedents. ]
SW: In that context, how can we approach architecture as something that is not perceived or
understood as an aesthetic “addition”? How does one bring those sense memories to bear in
application? Or perhaps in reality the question could be, how do you do it?
JP: I don’t think about such things separately. I think this comes back to the requirement of
developing your own personality. I believe that this is the core of the architect’s education. It
is to make every student conscious of his/her own personality, one’s own freedoms and
responsibilities. These are really the only true authorities that one is going to ever have. And
it is the sense of ego – and here I am not using the word in the sense of selfishness – a
humbleness of ego that is important. Joseph Brodsky says that reading poetry humbles you.
Actually he says reading, and particularly if you both read and write poetry, humbles you,
and very quickly at that. And also architecture humbles you, I believe, and it is through this
humility that your ego, or the student’s ego as an architect should be trained. And then, I
believe, things begin to fall in their right places, so that aesthetics is not a separate realm; it
is part of the existential realm of being a conscious and responsible human being.
SW: I’d like to shift focus a bit and ask you to reflect on another well-known Finnish architect,
Alvar Aalto. Malcolm Quantrill has written extensively about Aalto’s ability to “amalgamate
traces of modernism and cubist rhythms with traditional regional roots into a unique style
for a newly independent nation.” Is Aalto, in this sense, a vernacular architect seeking to
appropriate Finnish adaptations of modernism, or is Aalto simply representative of a more
broadly based view within Finnish architectural culture?*
Perhaps better, how do you see Aalto’s role within the context of establishing an approach
to defining an identity for a newly emergent nation, and design as an integral part of Finnish
culture?
JP: My guess is that if this question were asked of Aalto himself, he would say that “an idea
of amalgamating modernity and the Finnish vernacular tradition never occurred to me.” And
he would also probably say that these problems are non-existent to him. But when saying
that, I am not implying that these observations could not be made. This suggests how fully a
real artist’s aspirations are fused into each other. So that it’s not a ‘this or that’ concern, but
it’s a total existential concern. And, in my view, Aalto is a rather unique talent in modern
architecture in being able to adapt all kinds of aspects and fuse them into works, symphonic
architectural unities.
SW: But not done by explicit intent?
JP: Well, for instance, when I use the word “symphonic,” Aalto would probably smile at the
word. He would not have thought of such a thing. Aalto was a rather pragmatic architect,
who was guided by an exceptional intelligence that comes through in his writings, but
primarily by a strong, comfortable sense of self, so that he was not bothered by
appropriating somebody else’s work nor by the question of being modern, traditional,
regional, or international. He would not have cared for intellectual distinctions.
SW: This observation begs a further question. Specifically, do you think that this lack of
interest in categorization is a characteristic that you would attribute to Finnish architects in
general?
JP: Yes, I would say that this is perhaps a Nordic mentality at large which is rather pragmatic
and untheoretical. I’m a rather exceptional case in trying to both design and theorize. So
when I am asked by students what I gain as a practicing architect from my theoretical work,
my answer is: nothing. If anything, it makes my practical work more difficult! But I am sure it
improves me as a human being; it widens my understanding, and consequently, around the
corner, it makes me a better architect. But there is no direct causality between theory and
practice in architecture or any other art form. It is a Nordic mentality in general to see
human qualities in these terms, and artistic qualities also.
SW: Without that direct causality, then, is the architectural vernacular still a vital part of
architectural theory and practice? Is there today a new vernacular that exerts its own
influences, perhaps a re-emergence of tradition in new forms?*
JP: This is very difficult to answer, because it is perhaps unnecessary to differentiate

between tradition and the vernacular. There are different traditions, yes, one can speak of
traditions within the so-called “high” culture of architecture and the “low” vernacular culture.
But I think what is more meaningful is the sense of tradition altogether, that we live rather
than analyze and understand; we are historical beings; we are cultural beings; and we exist
and live in the continuum of culture and it is our task to continue it – to maintain that sense
of continuity. Even the most radical works in the history of art have always finally reinforced
that continuity. They have not broken the cultural continuum. I feel that it is important to
realize that the more radical the work, the more it is in dialogue with tradition in a
constructive sense.
SW: Could you provide an example that you feel is particularly pertinent?
JP: Well, let us say that the entire work of Le Corbusier is a continuous interplay with themes
of tradition – of both vernacular and high culture. The work of Louis Kahn is obviously a
dialogue with tradition and history or the timeless themes of architecture, and as far as I am
concerned, the most powerful message of Louis Kahn was to revitalize the Roman tradition
in the twentieth century. And that is what great artists always do; they revitalize certain
existing areas of thought and artistic tradition. They reveal and highlight certain aspects of
tradition. In Kahn’s case, it was primarily structure, materiality and order. As far as my
thinking is concerned, tradition is everything. I always like to quote the Catalan philosopher
Eugenio d’Ors and his astounding sentence, “Everything that is not tradition is plagiarism.” It
sounds like an absurdity, but when you begin to think about it, it’s a very powerful thought. It
means that anything truly new has to arise from tradition. The new that we aspire to today is
just a plagiaristic act of our obsessive belief in newness.
SW: Which returns us to the haptic and to an observation that traditional cultures are
primarily based on a pragmatism of the haptic and thus it could be argued that tradition is
grounded in that experience. And in that it comes back to the body and the bird. That
tradition is not so much rooted in form, or in material . . . and maybe that’s what you are
really saying?
JP: Yes, and tradition cannot be thematized. The attempt to be traditional or indigenous by
imitation or thematization is bound to fail. And that is something that T.S. Eliot already
taught us in his 1919 essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” He says that tradition
cannot be possessed or inherited; it must be reinvented and re-created by every successive
generation.
So we have a responsibility to tradition. And that is to keep it alive.
SW: I think that is a most appropriate way to end our conversation. On behalf of the College
I thank you for your time and consideration.
JP: You are most welcome.
Acknowledgments
*Questions marked with an asterisk were graciously provided by theme issue co-editor
Bruce Webb, at the author’s request. I would also like to thank George Dodds, JAE Executive
Editor, for inviting me to conduct the interview and liaising with the theme editors.
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10/18/21, 12:46 PM Common Ground: An Interview with Juhani Pallasmaa - WALL - 2009 - Journal of Architectural Education - Wiley Online

ley Online Li…

Journal of Architectural Education / Volume 63, Issue 1 / p. 75-79

Common Ground: An Interview with Juhani Pallasmaa

SCOTT WHELAND WALL,

First published: 05 October 2009

SW:“Rather than,” or in conjunction with the brain?

SW: How so?

JP: Any meaningful work is built on a tradition.There is no sensible communication in human

SW: But not done by explicit intent?

JP: This is very difficult to answer, because it is perhaps unnecessary to differentiate

So we have a responsibility to tradition. And that is to keep it alive.

JP: You are most welcome.

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