DOCSLIB.ORG

Alvar Aalto's Villa Mairea

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Alvar Aalto's Villa Mairea figure 1 of Soul and sanctuary alvar aalto’s villa mairea jessica cullen fall 2009 figure 2 space space Eminent Finnish architect and fa- In spite of the fact that he em- ther of “Nordic Modernism”, Alvar Aal- braces the subversion of standard Mod- to’s “radical compositional technique” is ernist practice, the cumulative result of the pictorial collage, and no Aalto design his freedom-finding in form and space demonstrates this practice more com- is ultimately “decentering space... pletely than Maire and Harry Gullichsen’s [and] articulating new, non-hierarchical Villa Mairea. Not only does this approach compositions” (Weston,75) in the Villa epitomize his career-defining pursuit of Mairea, is consistent with Martin Heide- an architecture that is at once intrinsically gger’s discussion of the fundamental democratic, existing in service to human- project of existence: “being, dwell- ity, pleasing, playful, and above all rep- ing and thinking.” (Heiddegger,345). resentative of pluralist sensitivities, but through it he translates this abstraction to The villa’s repeated “L” shape the visceral realm; to the intimate experi- nests in its core the dining room; the life- ence of space created by this philosophy. place of the Finnish home. It is the space Aalto’s Villa Mairea is as much of “seasonal, religious, national or familial emblematic of Modernism as it is not. shared meals” (Herdeg,25), and acts as The collage techniques Aalto applies the locus of activity and main connection result in the articulation of space that to other spaces. Through the connections defies uniformity dictated by standard which spring forth from this centre, the development in which distinctions be- Modernist practice. Indeed, with it, Villa demonstrates a rootedness to place, tween structural and non-structural el- Aalto calls into question the very “prin- ritual, and life, but at the same time, Aalto ements are blurred, if not actually ob- ciples of modern architecture such as de-centers space via the disruption of the scured.” (Weston,71). While also blurring constructional honesty, appropriateness structural column grid. Aalto disrupted one’s spatial experience, this articulates of materials, congruence between in- coherent order by varying materiality the connection to the forest surround- side and outside and the renunciation of but also effectively challenged structural ing the villa and enhances the human- of ornament” (Nerdinger,17). clarity, and as a result, the “overall rhythmic nature relationship posited by the design. space interior exterior space It is quite fitting that when translated humanist. He is, as Goran Schildt la- to English, the Finnish word aalto means belled him, Modernism’s “secret Dining Room: heart of Finnish life “wave” (Nerdinger, 20), for, not only does opponent”(Nerdinger, 9)--subtly ru- he subvert the prevailing rectilinear lan- manizing a practice that had focussed guage of Modernism and impose a sort too heavily on function and abstraction of spatial exuberance that challenges its and denied the essential human experi- reliance on regimen and regularity, but, ence of memory, of place and of soul. he infuses the Villa Mairea with strategies that both disorient and enfold the observer. If we believe that striated space is the space of order, regimen and con- Richard Weston maintains that trol, and smooth space an emergent, “anyone who experiences the interior of chaotic and expressive force that chal- the villa can feel themselves at home, lenges the status quo with the appropria- the moving centre of a richly articulated tion and morphing of its axioms to fuel a space, which seems, like its model for- new purpose, then we might view Aalto est, to be structured around the human and his work as having “smooth” char- subject.” He further claims that “in Aal- acteristics, like a wildflower growing in to’s hands, the post-Cubist decentring a sidewalk gap. Inevitably, fissures form of space was a deeply human project, in the hegemony and with them emerge centered, non-hierarchical space enabling him to articulate new, non-hi- new systems. Perhaps what Aalto’s Villa erarchical compositions to serve demo- Mairea is most successful in demon- cratic ends” (Weston, 75). It is thus im- strating is this fissure in the hegemony of possible to classify Aalto as a tried and the Modernist conception of space: that true Modernist or even to declare his kind every straight line has within it the poten- of Modernism intrinsically Finnish; it is tial to bend. In the rigid exists the fluid. space rigidity fluidity barcelona pavillion villa mairea figure 6 form form The emergent effect of Aalto’s of the sauna is set against the “sophis- organic. It is symbolic of the organic, subversion of the Modernist Cartesian ticated tectonic” (Frampton, 200) of the but not in itself a natural feature of the grid in the development of the Villa Mairea public facade. The “head of the studio” site. It remains only a reference. Or is echoed in the form that arises from it. opposes “the tail of the sauna”, while does it? Considering the greater scope It is neither resolved, nor complete, nor the “wooden siding of public rooms of the site and situation of the Villa does it subscribe to “any kind of abso- stands in contrast to the white render- Mairea, it would seem that the sauna lute reference” (de Solas-Morales, 616); ing of private areas” (Frampton, 200). plunge pool is actually a figurative step instead, reference and meaning thus in the generation of the resultant form. produced lie in relating—through form- Binary opposition abounds in the -dichotomous forces. It would there- Villa Mairea, code and form relate the fore seem that meaning is continuously historical and contemporary; global and produced via fragmented accumulation local; male and female; natural and artifi- and association; it is in the continuous cial; open and closed. Form therefore be- reading of the complex and contradictory comes the dialogic relationship between massing of bodies—the collage that is binaries. One might go so far as to call it the Villa Mairea—that one can exhume it. “rhizomatic”, in the Deleuzian sense, but Kenneth Frampton describes the perhaps the conditions and connections main buildings of the Villa Mairea as that are produced are static, representing a“’geologically striated mass’” set in fixed meaning and operating only in a pure- juxtaposition to “the irregularly contoured ly symbolic, coded, and temporal sense. perimeter of the sauna plunge pool” (Frampton, 199). The “metaphorical op- The “irregularly contoured perim- position”, in this case “between artificial eter of the sauna plunge pool” (Frampton, and natural form” (Frampton, 199), is 199), for instance, references an organic part of Aalto’s all-encompassing archi- form, and in the dichotomous relationship tectural trope. In this case there exists an between it and the “striated mass” (Framp- opposition between natural and artificial; ton, 199) of the main Villa buildings, it in another reading, the rustic vernacular certainly operates as such, but it is not a form The ‘story’ of the Villa Mairea is vernacular form thus: cyclical topography morphs into the embryonic form of the sauna plunge pool, which then morphs into the rustic- transition form ity of the sauna and connecting exterior corridor (a becoming-L shape) which finally morphs into the “sophisticated tectonic” (Frampton, 200) of the main building and public facade. It still oper- ates as representative, but plays a gen- erative, transitional role. In The Trout and the Mountain Stream, Aalto writes that “architecture and its details are con- nected in a way with biology. They are primordial form perhaps like large salmon or trout. They are not born mature... and as the fish eggs’ development to a mature organism requires time, so it also requires time for all that develops and crystallizes in our modern form world of thoughts. Architecture needs this time to an even greater degree than any other creative work” (Frampton, 200). topological reference form This same irregular form is refer- transition, ever-shifting, ever-morphing, enced in the main entrance canopy, and ever impregnated with new meaning. in the shape of the studio which defines the entrance space below it—significa- tion that is no doubt important. In their ir- regular shape, they represent and define the transitional space that the entrance zone is; quite literally, the “in-between” (Grosz, 93), the becoming space: be- coming-form, or becoming-natural envi- rons. Aalto extends this transition through what Frampton calls the “metonymy of the entrance canopy” (Frampton, 200). Irregular organization of columns under the canopy are trees, the collection, a forest—“a device repeated in the interior stair” (Frampton, 200) and in the irregular placement of columns throughout the in- terior of the Villa. It is indeed infected by multivalent forest references as columns not only signify the surrounding Finnish forest, but in the various permutations and combinations tectonically reference both new form Japanese and African assemblages. This new form ‘infection’ is permitted through the blur- ring of transitional space and form of the entrance, and suggests the tension inher- ent in form’s existence: not fixed, ever in form Virgin body, the “receptacle of incarna- tion... open and closed, enigmatic and familiar” (Suominen-Kokkonen, 86). They receive as well as produce limitless possibility. This is the essence of the form in the Villa Mairea--if we return to Aalto’s discussion of the egg and the fish—it is a dynamic form, which we see evolve in plan on the page, and which posits new The massed L-shape forms of the they were exposed to Fra Angelico’s possibilities in the “typology” (Vidler) Villa articulate this idea of openness and Cortona Annunciation. In his depiction of the two formal entrances.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Alvar Aalto's Masterpiece – Villa Mairea a DVD Film
    PRESS RELEASE Free use Alvar Aalto’s Masterpiece – Villa Mairea a DVD Film Alvar Aalto’s Masterpiece – Villa Mairea is a sensitive documentary film written, filmed and directed by Rax Rinnekangas. Villa Mairea was the home of Maire and Harry Gullichsen, designed by Alvar Aalto and built in Noormarkku, the Ahlström ironworks estate in 1939. The narration for the film has been written by architect Juhani Pallasmaa, who is also the film’s narrator. He leads the viewer through the rooms of Villa Mairea, and helps in understanding the different levels of Aalto’s philosophy as well as the building itself, a building which has become one of the icons of modern architecture. The booklet accompanying the film includes two articles. In the first, architect Kristian Gullichsen writes about the ideal home to which he moved in 1939 when he was seven years old. The house has since become an uninhabited monument. At times, however, Villa Mairea awakes to the life of a family, the games and laughter of children or as a discussion forum and meeting place for international artists and architects. In the second article Juhani Pallasmaa delves deep into the philosophy of the house. Rax Rinnekangas is a director, photographer and author. He has published over 20 books: novels, short stories, essays and photography books. He has held over 40 private exhibitions in Finland and around the world and has received several awards. His central theme is man and the memory of the past. In his documentary Alvar Aalto’s Masterpiece – Villa Mairea the importance of light as one particular visual element is also strongly present.
    [Show full text]
  • Lecture 22 Alvar Aalto and the Nordic Tradition
    5/18/16 Lecture 22! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Alvar Aalto and the Nordic Tradition Alvar Aalto 1898-1975 *Eliel Saarinen Hvitträsk *Eliel Saarinen Luomo, Finland, 1903 Hvitträsk Luomo, Finland, 1903 *Eliel Saarinen, Hvitträsk, Luomo, Finland, 1903 *Asplund, Stockholm Public Library, Stockholm, 1920-28 Erik Gunnar Asplund (1885-1940), *Stockholm Public Library, Stockholm, Sweden, 1920-28 *Eliel Saarinen, Hvitträsk, Luomo, Finland, 1903 1 5/18/16 *Asplund, Stockholm Public Library, Stockholm, 1920-28 *Asplund, Stockholm Public Library, 1920-28 *Asplund, Stockholm Public Library, 1920-28 Boullee, National Library project Stockholm Public Library *Asplund, Stockholm Public Library, 1920-28 Aalto, Civil Guard Buildings: Stables, Seinajoki, Finland, 1924-26 Alvar Aalto (1898-1975) Aalto, Villa Vekara Karstula, Finland, 1924 Turun Sanomat News, Turku, Finland, 1928 Aalto, House for Terho Manner, Töyszä, Finland, 1923 2 5/18/16 * Alvar Aalto, * Alvar Aalto, Library, Library, Viipuri, Viipuri, Finland, 1927-35 * Alvar Aalto, Library, Viipuri, Finland, 1927-35 Finland, 1927-35 * Alvar Aalto, Library, Viipuri, Finland, 1927-35 * Alvar Aalto, Library, * Alvar Aalto, Library, Viipuri, Finland, 1927-35 Viipuri, Finland, 1927-35 * Alvar Aalto, (Tuberculosis) Sanitorium, Paimio, Finland, 1928-33 *(Tuberculosis) Sanitorium, Paimio, Finland *Alvar Aalto, (Tuberculosis) Sanitorium, Paimio, Finland 3 5/18/16 * Alvar Aalto, (Tuberculosis) Sanitorium, Paimio, Finland, 1928-33 *Alvar Aalto, (Tuberculosis) Sanitorium, Paimio, Finland Alvar Aalto, three-legged stacking
    [Show full text]
  • COLLECTOR´S GAZE the Art Collections of Kristian and Kirsi Gullichsen & Juhani and Hannele Pallasmaa Pori Art Museum 07.06
    COLLECTOR´S GAZE The Art Collections of Kristian and Kirsi Gullichsen & Juhani and Hannele Pallasmaa Pori Art Museum 07.06. - 08.09.2013. Exhibition architect: Kirsi Gullichsen Media Day Thursday 06 June 2013 at 11.00 Collector Talk Friday 07 June 2013 at 12.00 Opening Friday 07 June 2013 at 18.00 At present, the building is the main thing in art museums and art is an alibi for constructing it. The works then decorate these excellent spaces. The Pori Art Museum follows a completely opposite idea. Kristian Gullichsen In 2006, the Pori Art Museum launched a series of exhibitions entitled THE COLLECTOR’S GAZE. Opening in June 2013, Art from the Collections of Kristian and Kirsi Gullichsen and Juhani and Hannele Pallasmaa is the fourth in the series, and completely exceptional. The museum’s exhibition spaces will now meet the personal collection of the designer of the museum building together with close colleagues and their collections. What happens to a work of art when it is transferred from one context of interpretation, one environment, to another – from the artist’s studio to a gallery, and from there to a collector’s home and in turn to an art museum? How is the dialogue of the exhibition space, art and architecture formed? What happens to architecture when its navel is cut, when it distances itself from the visual arts that link to shared existentialist soil? What is collecting, and what is a collection? Is it something that is consciously constructed? Or did art just become part of life and did the art works find their way into the collector’s home? The concept of art produced by art history and maintained by museums has only grudgingly accepted references to private tastes in art.
    [Show full text]
  • Aino Marsio-Aalto (1894-1949) the Architect of Interiors and Everyday Objects to Unveil
    Architectoni.ca © [2016], Copyright CCAAS Fátima Pombo et.al. , Architectoni.ca 2016, Online 4, 46-59 Aino Marsio-Aalto (1894-1949) the Architect of Interiors and Everyday Objects to Unveil Fátima Pombo1*, Pauliina Rumbin2 1Guest Professor of Department of Architecture, University of Leuven, Belgium and Member of Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture, University of Aveiro and University of Porto, Portugal E-mail: [email protected], *corresponding author. 2Engineer-Architect, University of Leuven, Belgium. Abstract Despite the remarkable success achieved during her lifetime, the Finnish architect and designer Aino Marsio- Aalto (1894-1949) is still poorly addressed in interior design history as a talent on her own and therefore independent of her husband’s praised architectural achievements. Besides the fact that both worked together in a common office and in many common projects till her death, it is not yet completed the research that will allow to acknowledge which was her participation in the corpus of work produced during the Aaltos partnership. If that endeavour will have ever a satisfactory response is also yet a doubt. Our perspective stems from the framework present in all of Aino Marsio-Aalto’s projects from which we construe a statement: based on the simplicity of forms, flawless quality of materials and practical view about dwelling Aino entices a feeling for fruition home in a soft, comfortable and natural atmosphere. With this paper we intend also to draw the attention to Aino Marsio-Aalto as an architect with a clear interest for ‘interiors’ which achievements deserve to be considered an excellent contribution to affirm the Nordic interpretation of modernism.
    [Show full text]
  • Aino Aalto: “A Quietly Flowing Stream” Eva Brydson
    Aino Aalto: “A quietly flowing stream” Eva Brydson Finnish designer Aino Aalto (née Marsio, 1894-1949) is often a footnote in her husband, icon of modern architecture, Alvar Aalto’s biography. An article from the Finnish Design Shop states that Aino’s “...life’s work has been easy to ignore, for example, by naming her merely the muse of her husband, Alvar Aalto.”1 This unfortunate lack of attention to Aino’s individual career discounts the significant contributions that she made to modern Scandinavian design. Collaborative work played a major role during Aino’s relatively short career (ca.1920 until her untimely death in 1949), whether with Alvar or their collaborative design firm, Artek. The early, formative years of Aino’s life and education led to her prominent contributions with Alvar and Artek. A critical inspection of Aino’s notable pieces, along with comparisons of some works that have been attributed to her, Alvar, or them both, reveal the undeniable influences between the two partners. Finally, Aino’s place in history in light of Alvar’s status as a genius of Scandinavian design analyzes the couple’s personal professional partnerships. Aino was born in 1894 in Helsinki, Finland, where she lived throughout her primary and secondary education. Aino was educated at the Helsingin Suomalainen Tyttökoulu (Helsinki Finnish Girls' School), and graduated in 1913. In 1920, at the age of 26, Aino was qualified as an architect after studying at the Helsinki University of Technology with Gustaf Nyström, 1 Kari-Otso Nevaluoma, “Aino Aalto - the strict functionalist,” Avotakka, July 28, 2018, https://www.finnishdesignshop.com/design-stories/classic/aino-aalto-the-strict-functionalist?.
    [Show full text]
  • 24 Villa Mairea
    VILLA MAIREA 24 Alvar Aalto Scott Poole Alvar and Aino Aalto, Villa Mairea, living room with Aino Aalto and Maire Gullichsen, Noormarkku, Finland, 1939.* The Companions to the History of Architecture, Volume IV, Twentieth-Century Architecture. Edited by David Leatherbarrow and Alexander Eisenschmidt. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. As late as 1927, at a time when modernism was making bold advances in the centers of European culture, Alvar and Aino Aalto were designing neoclassical buildings and handcrafted furniture in an array of historical styles in Jyväskylä.1 A small city in the countryside of central Finland, Jyväskylä was far from Turku and Helsinki, the cultural centers of a country that was already on the periphery of European civilization. There was little out of the ordinary in the Aaltos’ work.2 It was com- petent, conventional in its style and appropriate for its place. Looking forward from this point in time, the prospect that a modern masterpiece would emerge from their office seemed unlikely, let alone inevitable.3 Yet, looking back from 1939, the year the Villa Mairea was completed, the trajectory seems clearer. In fact, by early 1938, Alvar Aalto’s exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York was announced in a press release: “The Exhibition of Furniture and Architecture by Alvar Aalto presents the first American survey of the work of the Finnish architect, who is recognized as one of the most important and original modern architects and furniture designers of the past
    [Show full text]
  • Alvar Aalto Route?
    Producer Noora Kiili • Maîtrise de Sciences et de l’Informatique, l’Université Paris VIII • 15 years of SME’s business support and regional development projects • SME’s service and product development: • Brand development and business plans • Digital services and marketing, sale strategies • Intellectual property rights and licensing • Creative industries, museums and travel sector • Public & private funding • Since 1,5 years: Travel service producer at Alvar Aalto Foundation “The tradition that binds us all has a lot to do with climate, practical circumstances and the quality of the tragedies and comedies that we take part in. I do not produce emphatically “Finnish” architecture and cannot indeed see any particular contrast between the Finnish and the international. My home country is part of Europe.” - Alvar Aalto 1967- Why Alvar Aalto’s architecture? • The production of Alvar Aalto’s architectural office from 1920’ to 1970’ changed the conceptions of • town planning • Standards for example in housing • functional living spaces and public buildings • furniture, light ware and glass ware design • The top 5 most important cultural heritage of modern architecture in the world • Well known and appreciated from US to Japan Why Alvar Aalto Route? • to uplift the valuation of Aalto’s architecture • fundamentally the aim is to protect the Aalto sites, with the help of generated travel business • 2017 – museums and exhibitions reached over 1 million visitors • heterogenic sites creation of the Aalto Tour Brand and services • organized Alvar
    [Show full text]
  • The Development of Alvar Aalto's Free-Flow Section As a Climate Device Ulrike Passe Iowa State University, [email protected]
    Architecture Publications Architecture 12-2008 Atmospheres of space: the development of Alvar Aalto's free-flow section as a climate device Ulrike Passe Iowa State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/arch_pubs Part of the Architectural Engineering Commons, and the Architectural History and Criticism Commons The ompc lete bibliographic information for this item can be found at http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ arch_pubs/6. For information on how to cite this item, please visit http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ howtocite.html. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Architecture at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Architecture Publications by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Atmospheres of space: the development of Alvar Aalto's free-flow section as a climate device Abstract This paper is part of a broader research agenda, which aims at an environmental re-reading of selected icons of Modern Architecture that share one characteristic, the development of a free-flow open section. The ompc lex relationship between spatial composition and thermal and climatic conditions within buildings is explored both qualitatively, using analytic drawing, and quantitatively, using simulations with computational fluid dynamics. I am seeking patterns common to both and the work has become an investigation of the concept of architectural space at the intersection between art, technology, climate and perception. Most architects of the Modern Movement addressed this relationship in one way or another.
    [Show full text]
  • MAIRE GULLICHSEN the Pori Art Museum 27.05
    KYSE ON AIKAMME TAITEESTA / IT’S ABOUT THE ART OF OUR TIME / DET ÄR FRÅGA OM NUTIDA KONST - MAIRE GULLICHSEN The Pori Art Museum 27.05. – 23.09.2007. Opening on Sunday 27 May 2007 at 3 p.m. ” Maire Gullichsen (1907-1990) was a legend in her lifetime. She, if any Finnish woman who lived in the 20th century, had the makings of a hero myth, but heroism is understood in male terms, and is thus poorly suited to Gullichsen’s personality.” Tuula Karjalainen in the commemorative book on Maire Gullichsen, 2007 This year marks the centenary of the birth of Maire Gullichsen. The Maire Gullichsen Art Foundation and the Pori Art Museum celebrate the occasion with a special exhibition and the publishing of a catalogue and commemorative book in association with the Central Art Archives of the Finnish National Gallery. Maire Gullichsen was one of Finland’s leading figures in culture and art during the 20th century. She was a proponent of modern art, whose name is associated with many of the country’s leading cultural institutions of the past century, such as ARTEK, the Free Art School and the Contemporary Art Association. Her name is also borne by the Villa Mairea, designed by Alvar Aalto for Maire and Harry Gullichsen and perhaps one of Finland’s best-known modernist works of architecture. Built in Noormarkku in 1939, the Villa Mairea also became the home of the Gullichsens’ large art collection. Maire Gullichsen wanted to change the atmosphere of the Finnish art world, and she succeeded in this aim.
    [Show full text]
  • Innovators: Architects
    NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES INNOVATORS: ARCHITECTS David W. Galenson Working Paper 15661 http://www.nber.org/papers/w15661 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 January 2010 The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer- reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications. © 2010 by David W. Galenson. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. Innovators: Architects David W. Galenson NBER Working Paper No. 15661 January 2010 JEL No. A0 ABSTRACT Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Frank Gehry were experimental architects: all worked visually, and arrived at their designs by discovering forms as they sketched. Their styles evolved gradually over long periods, and all three produced the buildings that are generally considered their greatest masterpieces after the age of 60. In contrast, Maya Lin is a conceptual architect: her designs originate in ideas, and they arrive fully formed. The work that dominates her career, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, was designed as an assignment for a course she took during her senior year of college. The dominance of a single early work makes Lin’s career comparable to those of a number of precocious conceptual innovators in other arts, including the painter Paul Sérusier, the sculptor Meret Oppenheim, the novelist J.D.
    [Show full text]
  • The Villa Mairea Binaries Alvar Aalto
    the villa mairea binaries alvar aalto artificial The emergent effect of Aalto’s subversion of the Modernist Cartesian grid in the development of the Villa Mairea is echoed in the form that arises from it. It is neither resolved, nor complete, nor does it subscribe to “any kind of absolute reference” (de Solas-Morales, 616); instead, reference and meaning thus produced lie in relating—through form--dichotomous forces. It would therefore seem that meaning is continuously produced via frag- mented accumulation and association; it is in the continuous reading of the complex and contradictory massing of bodies—the collage that is the Villa natural Mairea—that one can exhume it. rustic vernacular sophisticated tectonic Kenneth Frampton describes the main buildings of the Villa Mairea as a“’geologically striated mass’” set in juxtaposition to “the irregularly contoured perimeter of the sauna plunge pool” (Frampton, 199). The head “metaphorical opposition”, in this case “between artificial and natural form” tail (Frampton, 199), is part of Aalto’s all-encompassing architectural trope. In this case there exists an opposition between natural and artificial; in another reading, the rustic vernacular of the sauna is set against the “sophisticated tectonic” (Frampton, 200) of the public facade. The “head of the studio” opposes “the tail of the sauna”, while the “wooden siding of public rooms stands in contrast to the white rendering of private areas” (Frampton, 200). In the Villa Mairea, binary opposition abounds, code and form relate the historical and contemporary; global and local; male and female; natural and artificial; open and closed. Form therefore becomes the dialogic relation- ship between binaries.
    [Show full text]
  • Press Information Alvar Aalto
    Press information Alvar Aalto – Second Nature 27.09.2014 – 01.03.2015 Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein The architectural critic Sigfried Giedion called him the »Magus of the North«: Alvar Aalto (1898–1976) is the best known Finnish architect of his generation and a chief proponent of a human-centred modernism. His buildings such as the Paimio Sanatorium (1933) or Villa Mairea (1939) embody a masterful interplay of organic volumes, forms and materials. Aalto’s Paimio Chair (1931–1932) and his Stool 60 (1933) were milestones in the development of modern furniture, and his emblematic Savoy Vase (1936) has become the symbol of Finnish De- sign. With »Alvar Aalto – Second Nature«, the Vitra Design Museum is now present- ing a major retrospective exhibition on this legendary architect and reveals many new aspects of his oeuvre. While previous exhibitions and publications have regarded Aalto’s organic architectural language as having been derived directly from Finnish nature and landscape, »Alvar Aalto – Second Nature« takes a new, more contemporary look at Aalto. The exhibition explores how Aalto’s affinity for organic form was mediated through a close dialogue with many artists of his time, such as László Moholy- Nagy, Jean Arp, Alexander Calder or Fernand Léger. Works of these and other artists are juxtaposed with Aaltos designs and buildings, illustrating his significance as a figurehead of the international art and architecture Avant-Garde from the 1920s onwards. The cosmopolitan Aalto, who had a strong interest in cinema, film, photography and theater, quoted Fernand Léger by calling himself a »chef d’orchestre« conducting all the arts to synthesize a harmoni- ous, symphonic whole.
    [Show full text]