INTRODUCTIOl\ and the Traditiort of ModerrLLSn'L Colin St. John Wilson

as if in its natu- A Sense of Heritage without challenge and come to maturity ral habitat. For the , modernism has so matured that it has achieved the depth of perspective proper to a tradition of its own. On one level this is a simple fact of life, for in Finland only one building in eight is older than sixty years. At the level of architectural polemic, it is r nas been said that the greatness of the innovator significant that an architect like Kristian Gullichsen, (as long can be measured by the extent to which he hinders pro- when he jestingly confesses to "a taste for clich6s recol- gress after his death. Any approach to the architecture of as they are good ones)," does not have in mind the Finland has to consider the application of this proposi- lections of the Arch of Constantine or the Villa Malcon- tion to , who most certainly was one of the tenta so much as references to Le Corbusier, Aalto, Sig- discipline's great innovators. However, the content of urd Lewerentz, Johannes Duiker, and Adolf Loos. In a years of this book alone belies the charge of rigor mortis: I know later note he refers to "the tradition of sixty-five that of no livelier body of work anywhere else in the world. It modernism" and goes on to say, "It is my conviction an inexhaust- should be understood that Aalto's predominance is more this intellectual and artistic base contains meaning an impression held outside Finland, because of his great ible source of architectural concepts, rich in would be international reputation, than a constituent factor in the and history; in short, it is a gold mine which it unfolding of Finnish architecture. As we shall see, other foolish noi to explore." In other words, for Finnish archi- native talent and interpretation have indeed influenced tects the modern movement is not only an unchallenge- has, the work illustrated here even more than Aalto himself. able foundation for an evolving architecture, but ample Finland, it seems, is the one country in which the during the last sixty-five years, established an architecture of the modern movement has developed tradition. ll history How is this so? It lies in the chemistry and phenoln- u and that is an infinitely complex of Jr.", the ;;;". ct;;;ight as well ask whv Greek culture posed ;;;;';i;;;;iions that could onlv be answered bv the inventionofentasis,andthenpursuedtheconsequences with the intensity of a moral imperative' ;i;nuf;t*er of a et fr.ppy moment in history, the self-awareness ;;;id#rio.," .o*"ho* betam" encoded and embodied I The moment was happy because it coin- i" t."fri,""r"re. of cided with the genesis, emergence' and self-realization of architecture; u *ttfa*ia" reiolution in the experience of L'Esprit Nouveau' itt, sense of a new beginning'"upon of the pri,ncipal ""aseems to have been seized u' o'" .."i. .f ia""tity and sources of imagination in the forma- tion"^"-'-F;.; of a whole culture' this, there has come into being a quality- of gift be- .oo,"J.r".. in the realm of res publica. This is a position in Great V""J pri." when compared with the britain or the United States, where it is necessary to "meaning"-a ;;;;p an apologia for every building's phenomenon scarce i"ror.i" in a public vacuum' This of a single was not the achievement of a single man nor talents generation, but something sustained. bJ AaltoTu" and his across a broad range of il'"t' Certainly were th"e first off the mark' setting up their ;if":Ai"., 1922'But it oractice in the same year as Le Corbusier: "*;r-i;;h" ;rt"*t of a lltety range of international con- (Congrds Interna- 1940 i^.it U.,t, personal and institutional 1. , Resutrection Chapel'' architec- tionaux d,Aichitecture Moderne), that Finnish o., the map' Neither. England nor the ;;;ili;;"tr or U"i,"a States provided any comparable engagement to the give-and-take of innovation and pro- identify as """irlU",lo"motion, of practice and polemic, that w-e^now By ih" g."ut modernist adventure of the 1920s and 1930s' the architectural culture of Finland (in as the ""Li..it"",which the constructivism of Russia was as active pro- of , and the purism of Paris as .i^.ri"it- the late vocative as the new obSectivlty tf Berlin) from with the original 1920s onward grew.ot'i"*potutteously (l)' e"na in so fat as Aalto' Erik Bryggman innor.tlo.rs. to u"JV.:ti Lindegren contributed their own inflections ,fr^, .^iriafy evJving language' the claim by the current ffi" s, Gd* P'l"tingworks'TaPiola' u..hiL't' 1" Fit'I"'d to draw upon that ;;";;;;;'.i Fur- has the simple authority of a birthright' i.uii,i"" better- thermore, it is not a rlght based only upon those certainly li"ll-ad'ertised) contributions' but f".*" i"ita of great liom its earliest formation the strands vigorous- contains kiinen (3), and others' And this debate has been diversitY. argued ever since' particularly in the has to.be emphasized if i, This quality of diversity ^.rd "loqrently pittut- aa and the Iate Kirmo Mik- been sustained for riri,I"gt i"ttu"i one is to do justice to a debate that has "i Can( kola. years in the publication of Le af- it" f.tt thirty-five Finnish modernism has always been a complex ;';;i;;A-i6 u"a subsequentlv in the vearbookAbacus' Aalto's is ,t prepargd ftl fai.. Simffy to take into account '' For instance, one would not have been 1!: has very little to 1985 to realize that it is an architecture that ;"l";ri." of Tadao Ando for the Aalto Award in of elemental dowiththelnternationalstyle,thatpurelystylisticfor- unless one were aware of the background Barr, and Johnson after a and teaching of *rtu p."t""ted by Hitchcock, ut-ri.."tio" in the very influential work irrelevance of that equallv au- tourist trip to Europe in 1932' The , a"u' Blomstedt and the richly narra- ;h;';;;;i;;uii't" (2)' Pit- i"..""f. (no decoration, no history) to the thoritative minimalist school of Ruusuvuoti l2 4. , initial competition design for the Public Library, 1921 trntr!ntrnn[rrltrtrDtr

3. Pekka Pitktinen, Cemetery Chapel, Turku ,.'. tive form of the villa has been most convincingly spelled =l out by Demetri Porphyrios. By the same token, Finnish modernism has little reason to take too seriously postmodernism, whose terms of reference are merely the =l reversal of those postulated for the International Style (all decoration, all historical quotation). Indeed, the Finnish response to postmodernism broadly takes three /[,o"o,V VV forms: a very decisive relationship to the classical tradi- tion, an inexhaustible capacity to extend the language of 5. Alvar Aalto, elevation and plan, Municipal Library,Viipuri (now form, and an uninterrupted commitment to symbolic , USSR), 1928 reference wherever appropriate.

The Relationship to Classicism

In its unequivocal view of the relationship between mod- ernism and classicism, Finland has the advantage of sharing in the very positive attitude to that tradition adopted by the earlier in this century. This is eloquently demonstrated by the line of thought that developed through two closely related buildings. Municipal Library,Viipuri (nowVyborg, entry by 6. Alvar Aaho, section, The story begins in l92l with the competition ussR),1928 Gunnar Asplund for the Stockholm Public Library. In the initial project for this building, a round reading room (embracing three levels in stepped-terrace form) is en- tered at the head of a long, ascending staircase (4).That stair, in turn, is approached directly from an entrance portal of exaggerated vertical form. Most of the para- phernalia of classical language (dome and Corinthian their force as figurative elements in the complete build- portico) were shed in the eight-year course of the proj- ing of 1928. Aalto's competition project for the Viipuri ect's development, but the main elements in plan and Library (1928) is an extremely sophisticated spatial in- section were retained in stripped geometrical form. In vention which nevertheless acknowledges its lineage in particular, the tall portal and the ascending stair retain the Stockholm Library (5,6).The asymmetrically placed

13

E ., 1 added a genuine footnote to the development of neoclas- .i*ii""i"uge in this century (one thinks particularly of ;;;";;;;, a"nd Rsplund) abandoned that languass be- *.rr" i, could no io.g". say what had to be said' We p.ontubly recali Le Corbusier's broadside in Vers "orrtaui oichitectuie: "Rome is the damnation of the half- educated."

Enlarging the Language of Modernism sustain As to the capacity of the modernist language to philosopher Jur- of design, Municipal Library' further d"u"lopment, the claim by the 7. Alvar Aalto, elevations final is an "un- V iipuri (now VYborg, USSR), / 935 g"" ffuU".."as that the modernist adventure f.ritn"a project" is given substance by the fertile inven- ;;;;"r. *iin *ni"n the architects represented in this book continue to affirm, hone, and extend the language ,fr"V t."" inherited. While elsewhere so many had ac- ;;',J the modernist language as just a "style" (the In- i"i"u,io"uf Style), in Finland functionalism was truly as addressed as a root-and-branch social idea' As early iSrO e"t," pointed out, "It is not the rationalization itself which i, *.o.rg in the first and now past period of modern architecture. The wrongness lies in the fact that Russians' has not gone deep enough' Instead 8. Viipuri Library, revised elevations proposed by the ifr"-.utlottutizalion Archives) rational mentality, the newest phase of mod- 1952. (courtesv Viipuri City ;i [hiiil"archilecture ern tries to project rational methods from if," i".nri"ul field out io h"u' and psychological is . . . . The present phase of modern architecture as in Stockholm with reliefs of classical fields portico, flanked a new one, with the special aim of solving cuts through a rusticated base' affording doubtless ;;;;;;;";;, in the humanitarian and psychological fields"' a long, ascending staircase to the reading room' ;;;fi; by this is the case, the grounds for a development "ntrv tiu.u.v. Tle resemblance' however' does irrd *h"t" ;i; ilpl""J( are not so much syntactic as pragmatic' jusl as Asplund's project evolved from of language ,lt rtop tt For level of syntax, it is a common ".e. ptoiotyp" into a. neoclassicism Ho*"u"., at the Palladian in this book that it is in the han- ""-".pii"itfv just .hott oi the functionalism of his virtue of all the work itui tiopp"i only"e*ftiUitlon is brought to all the elements pavilions, so did the Viipuri diing of light that new life is3b S,6"khot- column, frame, ceiling' equip- (once again-over eight years) through of tiat language-wall, Li;;.ry develop Aalto set the pace' He said of his Aal- Inthis case"the final version (built in 1935) -""i.-O""""agiin th;;":',"g".. Mrrr",r..rlq,"Lightis to the art gallery what acous- ut tt" modernist experience pur sang; that is' to.g ;;;i;"J to the concert hall," and he made of that building no longer derivedlrom precedent (be it Palla- ticsire io.r.r, *"." as delicate and precise as a Stradivarius brit from patternt of trs"' For the control a., irrstrument l"r. .. e.pi"nd) light was molded, filtered' reflected up- page, the distribution of circulation within it ;i;;;itsfi, ;pon the "iofi"t shimmering water' and directed acouitic performance o[ the lecture *..J'f..- trays"of .r.**.] and the to reveal sculpture or painting to forms were invented' downward or obliquely -.Lo*, - - ,.rpt"cedented light, not "engineer's light"' was seen not as a nostal- i,. U".t advantage: living ff'rit revival of classicism Le Corbusier's passion a stepping forward For Gullichsen, who shares gic turning back to the past but as magnificent 1952 for the wall and the "subtle, precise and into modeinism. But theie is a sting to this tale' In of tfr" nr.riun. considered a project for "the renovation iir" U"ifai"g on the basis of modern Soviet architecture'" i"1fr"i. p.o"posal, the fagades of the Aalto building were i" il" pfl.,*ed with Ionic columns and pilasters (7'8)' iii. d pt""isely what the classical revivalists of today would wish to io, and the irony lies in the discrepancy are at- between the linguistic crassness of those who pompous- tempting to revive what Edwin Lutyens rather high game" of classicism and the brilliant i;;ll"f';,he Baruel, cross sections' Aalborg of thoi" who have abandoned it' It is surely 9. Alvar Aaho andJean-Jacques i'.r*rtlr".r"., Aalborg, , 1972-76 *iifr"", significance that the few architects who have Museum, "", l4 t:!il!t..tj

'ffia ,-{Tffi - ! tLet&ss& 10. Kristian Gullichsen, Kauniainen Parish Center, , 1979

11. Juha Leiviskii Myynniiki Church and Parish Center, Helsinki, t 984 play of forms in light," light is the medium of what Adrian Stokes called the "carving mode." In Gullichsen's Kauniainan Parish Center (10) , one is reminded of Stokes's reference to Palladio's "vivification of wall space." For Juha Leiviskii, light is not carved but (again in Stokes's phrase) "modeled" by means of planes overlap- ping in rhythmical sequences of layers, like cubism that seems to hold all forms suspended in a radiant levitation. In his church es (t I , I 2) , the physics of light becomes the metaphysics of light: as Abbot Suger wrote in his poem on the chapel of St. Denis, "per lumina vera ad Verum Lumen" (through clear lights [windows] to the True Light). Erkki Kairamo draws his inspiration from a differ- ent concern within the modernist canon-the frame structure of industrial fabrication. In his work it is not so much a preoccupation with technology per se that con- fronts us as the jolting energy of constructivism, the buoyant and colorful rhetoric of optimism. Unpredict- 12. luha Leiviskci, Myyrmciki Church and Parish Center' Helsinki, ably, this mode works as convincingly in his residential I 984 15 In the work of Simo and Kiipy Paavilainen there is an extraordinary tension between a spatial distribution r. Jv".*i. thai for corflparison one would have to look to }ians Scharoun and a tendency for the component parts to reveal an ancestry, however-remote, in classical 'urriqrlty. Simo Paavilainen is a scholar-architect who f-rur tno"gt t deeply and written well about the Nordic classicisri of the lszo.. What is gratifying in his ap- p.ou.t, is that it eschews the symmetries and bombast so i".. t" postmodernism and draws instead upon the ob' flq"" ."ir.iUility that we find in the Erechtheion or the temple site at Pergamon. As with Le Corbusier' it is to the Cr"ek, not the Roman, that he responds' In the parish centers of Olari (15) and Kontula (16) , we encounter a radical freedom from conventional axiality resulting ir the kind of aperspectival space that is the only way t( Houses, of u g.ouping ;f activities that at times de 13. Erkki Kairamo, Liinasaarekua 3-5 Semidetached *^k" ,".." Westend, , 1980

and Parish Centet t S. fapy and Simo Paavilainen, Olari Church Espoo, 1981

Center' 14. Erkki Kairamo, Itiikeskus Tower and Commercial Helsinki, 1987

and buildings at Westend, Espoo (13), a1 r1. his office complex in tielsinki (14'The spirit of his ".r"-"i.irf*-".[1. closer to that of Duiker who, in his Zonnestraal .f t""light") Sanatorium, proclaimed that "the i;'t.v Kontula Church and Parish irvgi"r" of ligh"t, sun, and air say gtod-bye to the Middle 16. Ktipy and Simo Paavilainen, Center, Helsinki, 1988 Ages forever!" t6 mands absolute separation and at others seeks to share a churches, yet transcribes their inexplicable splendor of common space. white and gold into a completely new language, free from the need for any direct quotation.

The Question of Symbolic Form Conclusion

Walter Gropius's assertion that the language of modern AII in all, the status of contemporary architecture in architecture is radically cut off from the past has never Finland constitutes a certain reproach to the reactionary been without challenge in Finland. We have already al- nostalgia, the dithering and scuttling, the lost sense of luded to the complexity of the Villa Mairea. It is not common purpose, and the instant kitsch that dominate surprising therefore that Kristian Gullichsen (who was the scene and are fostered elsewhere by those whom raised in that house) should have no difficulty respond- Habermas has rightly stigmatized as "the Avant-Garde ing to the narrative and iconological aspects that de- of the Great Retreat." It is not without some envy that we manded resolution in his Kauniainan church. His han- note how in Finland the architectural profession has won dling of the modernist canon is both supple enough to an enviable position of public confidence. Certainly I cope with a very complex topographical context and know of no place in which revivalism and postmoder- subtle enough to embody appropriate elements of sym- nism have made less inroad upon the claim to orthodoxy bolic form. The representational intent is sustained at a of modernism than Finland.I suspect that the prevalence number of levels and is quite without strain. Allusions and rigor of the competition system in Finland have are made both to antiquity as well as to the immediate much to do with the generally high level of design that past, but they are not made to "hot up" the style nor leads to such confidence. Virtually all public buildings merely to borrow authority from the past. They are sim- and many other buildings are the subject of competition. ply arrived at as a result of thinking through the real I suggest that the role played by women architects has relationships at issue, and in so doing rediscover themes a lot to do with this success, for, either as partners in found there either two thousand or twenty years ago. If, a man-and-wife team (one thinks of Heikki and Kaija therefore, the west wall undulates, it does so-much as it Sir6n, Alvar, , and Elissa Aalto, Reima and Raili did with Borromini or Lewerentz or Aalteto find a Pietilii, and Simo and Kiipy Paavilainen) or solo (from place for a font, a sacristy, or a stair; ifthe rising topogra- Signe Hornberg and Wivi Lonn to Kaarina Lofstrom), phy introduces a difficulty in building the main floor the contribution of women is very significant' Ievel of the church into the hillside, Gullichsen's choice And so we salute the unruffled persistence with of a descending approach also recalls the catacomb of the which in Finland the potentialities of the modernist ad- primitive church. The four columns in the church can be venture are being broadened and deepened; and above said to symbolize the four evangelists, the three light all the fact that such a broadening is based upon an wells and the triangular skylight over the altar to repre- unquestioned belief in the sufficiency of resources de- sent the Trinity, and so on. In the same way, Leiviskii ployed by the modern movement, which has by now its admits to a passion for the interiors of Bavarian rococo own tradition.

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