ALVAR

AALTOS

Submitted To :- Ar Mugdha
Submitted By :- Sachin
 BIOGRAPHY

 Father :- johan henrik aalto (land surveyor)

 Mother :- selly matilda (swedish postmistress)

 In 1916 he enrolled in architecture at helsinki university of technology

• FINNISH CIVIL WAR
 He fought in three wars :-
• BATTLE OF LANKIPOHJA
• BATTLE OF TAMPERE

 In 1920 he worked under an architect named , “ ARVIND BJERKE”

 In 1920 he opened his architectural firm named :- ALVAR AALTO:-

ARCHITECT AND MONUMENTAL ARTIST

 In 1925, italy was aalto's first trip there, though aino had previously made a
study trip there . the latter trip together sealed an intellectual bond with the
culture of the mediterranean region that was to remain important to aalto for
the rest of his life .

 alvar aalto died on 11 may1976, in helsinki and is buried in the hietaniemi

cemetery in helsinki
 Born:- Died:- AWARDS :-
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto • RIBA Gold Medal
1May 1976 (aged 78)
3 February 1898 • AIA Gold Medal
Kuortane, finland
Helsinki, Finland
• Prince Eugen
Medal

ABOUT

Philosophy :-
• Nordic modernism
• Humanistic Modernism
• Functionalism
• Bio Architecture
• Embodied Rationalism
Classification:-
Early Career :- Classicism
Early Career :- Functionalism
Mid Career :- Experimentation
Mature Career :- Monumentalism
Furniture Career.
 PHILOSOPHY:-

 NORDIC MODERNISM:

 First and most influential architects of Nordic modernism.

 Nordic countries architects were practicing 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
 Aalto's career spans the changes in style from (Nordic Classicism)
to purist International Style Modernism to a more personal,
synthetic and idiosyncratic Modernism

 Functionalism

 Usage dictates the outward form, without regard to such traditional

conceptions of symmetry, proportions, etc
 HUMANISTIC MODERNISM

 Viewed the machine age as dehumanizing and

believed it harmed social relationships and
human worth
 Humanistic design
 Clear message: Aesthetics and functionality
belong to all

 BIO ARCHITECTUR:

 Strongly influenced by the nature : Finnish

forests and lakes
 Bio-climatic solutions
 There is a particular care in the use of natural
materials, in the insertion of the building in the
natural environment, in the best sunshine
conditions and natural lighting.
 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 closely followed and had personal
contacts with other pioneers in Sweden, in particular Gunnar
ASPLUND AND SVEN MARKELIUS
 Some Works during this period :-
• Alatalo farmhouse in Tarvaala in 1924
• Jyväskylä Defence Corps building in 1926
• Finnish Parliament building in 1923 and 1924
• University of Helsinki in 1931
• League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1926–27
 EARLY CAREER :-
FUNCTIONALISM
 The shift in Aalto's design approach
from classicism to modernism is
epitomised by the Viipuri Library
(1927–35),which went through a
transformation from an originally
classical competition entry proposal to
the completed high-modernist building.

 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 and Paimio
Sanatorium. Thus ,the Turun Sanomat
Building first heralded Aalto's move
towards modernism
 MID CAREER :-
EXPERIMENTATION
 Utilizing this knowledge he was able
to solve technical problems
concerning the flexibility of wood and
also of working out spatial issues in
his designs.
 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.
OTHER BUILDINGS DURING THAT
PERIOD:-
 Helsinki University of Technology
campus (starting in 1950)
 Säynätsalo Town Hall (1952)
 Helsinki Pensions Institute(1954)
 Helsinki House of Culture (1958)
 MATURE CAREER :-
MONUMENTALISM

 The early 1960s and 1970s (up until his

death in 1976) were marked by key
works in Helsinki, in particularthe huge
town plan for the void in centre of
Helsinki
 In his town plan Aalto proposeda line of
separatemarble-cladbuildings frontingthe
bay which would house various cultural
institutions, including a concert hall,
opera, museum of architectureand
headquarters for the FinnishAcademy .
 Some Worksduring this period
• Finlandia Hall Concert hall (1976)
• Helsinki Electricity Company (1975)
• Enso-Gutzeit building (1962)
• Academic Bookstore (1962)
• SYP Bank building (1969)
 FURNITURE CAREER

 Whereas Aalto was famous for his

architecture , his furniture designs
were well thought o f and are still
popular today. He studied Josef
Hoffmann and the Wiener
Werkstätte, and for a period of
time, worked under Eliel Saarinen.
 During the late 1920s and 1930s
he, working closely with Aino Aalto,
also focuseda lot of his energy on
furniture design, partly due to the
decision to design much of the
individual furniture pieces and
lamps for the Paimio Sanatorium.
 Of particular significance was the
experimentation in bent plywood
chairs, most notably the so-called
Paimio chair, which had been
designed for the sitting
Tuberculosis Patient.

 The Aaltos, together with visual

arts promoter Maire Gullichsen and
art historian Nils-Gustav Hahl
founded the Artek company in
1935, ostensibly to sell Aalto
products, but also other imported
products . Hebecame the first
furniture designer to use the
cantilever principle in chair design
using wood.
 Work styles of Aalto

COMPOSITION WITH PRIMARY

ELEMENTS
• Linear elements are found in
his design.
• curve lines can also be seen

USE OF PLANES

OVERHEAD PLANES
• Alvar Aalto mainly used
the overhead planes as
the source of skylight
and diffused light.
DEPRESSED BASE PLANE
• In both of these examples, Alvar
Aalto defined a reading area within
a larger library space by dropping
its floor plane below the main lavel
of the library.
• The vertical surfaces are the
storage for books .
L shaped planes , U shapped planes
USE OF FORMS (REGULAR / IRREGULAR)

• Aalto used both regular and irregular types of shapes

SPATIAL ORGANIZATION
Mainly two types of spatial organizations can be seen in the
projects of Alvar Aalto.

• Linear organization Clustered organization

TYPES OF OPENINGS

Alvar Aalto used regular

openings. Almost three
kind of openings (within
planes, at corners and
between planes) can be
found in Aalto’s designed
built forms
• BETWEEN PLANES
• WITHIN PLANES
• AT CORNERS
 Säynätsalo Town Hall 

• Occupying the center of a small farming town in finland, säynätsalo

’s town hall might appear almost too monumental for its context.
• Designed by alvar aalto in 1949.
• The town hall is a study in opposition: elements of classicism and
the monumental blended with modernity and intimacy to form a
cohesive new center-point for the community.
• The community organized an architectural competition to find a
design for a town hall.
• He civic complex was to comprise a council chamber, local
government offices, a community library, staff apartments, and
retail space that would ultimately allow the functions of the town
hall to expand beyond their original parameters.

Ground level
 First floor level

Second floor level

Third floor level
• Aalto’s winning proposal for the project follows the traditional
European court-and-tower model of a civic center.
• The complex consists of two wood-framed brick buildings: the
rectangular library block and the U-shaped government building.
• These two buildings act as a retaining wall that allowed Aalto to fill
the central courtyard with earth excavated from the slope of the
site; thus, the courtyard is lifted one story above the surrounding
landscape.
• This difference in elevations creates two contrasting experiences of
the building, depending on whether one is inside the courtyard or
observing from outside.
• Inside the courtyard, the facades of the surrounding library and
office spaces are only one story tall; however, outside observers
instead see an imposing two-story facade, much of which is
monolithic, unornamented brick.
• The two staircases leading up to the courtyard from ground level are
likewise divergent in style.
• The eastern staircase is formal and rectilinear, with two flights
carved from impeccably hewn granite.
• The western staircase has a more irregular footprint, and is made
not of stone or brick but of terraced sod held back by wooden
planks.
• The courtyard itself is only partially paved, continuing the
juxtaposition of brick and grass begun by the two staircases.
• The entrances to the civic offices and the public library open onto the
courtyard, allowing it to serve not only as an open circulatory space,
but also as a public plaza for the benefit of the entire town.
• Directly across from the glazed corridor, branching off the equally
bright and airy entrance hall, is a darker more narrow stairwell
lined with brick.
• This staircase, which leads to the council chamber, turns back on
itself at a landing halfway up, shielding the chamber from view of
the lobby; the stairwell is also hidden from exterior view thanks to
its east-facing clerestory windows.
• The room is roughly cubic, with the distance from floor to ceiling
nearly matching the length of the walls.
• The ceiling, whose slope matches that of the roof, is visibly
supported by wooden struts fanning out from two central beams;
these struts support the roof entirely, negating the need for heavy
built-in framing that would obstruct ventilation between the interior
and exterior surfaces of the roof.
• The council chamber is naturally lit by a densely-louvered west-
facing window, with hanging lamps illuminating both the desks
below and the wooden trusses above them.
• The municipal board members in charge of the building were
unconvinced that a town as small as theirs could justify the
construction of a 17-meter tall council chamber, especially given
the high price of the brick specified for the project.  
• Despite its Modernist aesthetic, Säynätsalo Town Hall has been
heavily influenced by Renaissance and Medieval Italian
architecture.
•  Smaller details also owe their inspiration to Italy: the terraced
earthen stairs to the plaza are also based on an Italian model
• Säynätsalo Town Hall underwent significant restoration work,
which began in 1995.
• The restoration preserved the building in its original form and
materials as much as possible; only damaged components were
replaced, with pieces simply weathered by time left as they were.
• The work was completed in time for Alvar Aalto’s hundredth
birthday in 1998, preserving his civic center for generations of the
future to visit and admire
VIIPURI LIBRARY
• Won the design competition in 1927 :: Nordic Classicism
• The final decision on the construction of the library was taken in
September 1933
• Its final form it represented International Modernism
• Sunken reading-well, free-flowing ceilings and cylindrical
skylights, first tested in Viipuri
• Destroyed in WW2, for a decade
• Its transformation from modern icon to deserted relic to
architectural classic is a tale of political intrigue, warfare, and the
perseverance of a dedicated few who saved the building from ruin.
• Against the odds, the library survived the wars. In the late 1950s,
a renewed interest in the town led to the first hasty renovation of
the building by Soviet architects who allegedly did not have access
to Aalto’s original plans.
• Sickly but standing, the building continued to serve as a library for
the growing population of Vyborg, showing ever increasing signs of
age and wear
• The library's massing consists of two
simple rectangular blocks that are
offset horizontally from one another,
but the internal spatial organization is
deceptively more complex.
• What is often described as three floors
in plan is actually six or seven in
section, resulting in a variegated array
of volumetric conditions and a
complex field of transitional spaces.
• The programmatic arrangement bears
some resemblance to the simpler
massing, with administrative and
ceremonial spaces in the main
entrance block and the bulk of the
reading spaces and bookshelves in the
larger rear block. The intricacy of the
plans, however, reveals this diagram
not to be so straightforward in
practice.
 Bellow ground level

Ground level
 First floor level

Second floor level