DOCSLIB.ORG

Bauhaus Connection Her Sights High with Genuine Constructions)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Bauhaus Connection Her Sights High with Genuine Constructions) did not cease to be a plaything, and she set Bauhaus Connection her sights high with genuine constructions). Josenia Hervás They were, however, not the only ones who had realised that they could cross over to the other side of the barrier: they could be evenness, plurality, left, feminine, movement, curve, darkness, bas and oblong, but also oddness, unity, right, masculine, rest, straight, light, good and square. They could be both peras and apeiron, it was just a question of making up your mind and being allowed to. When in 1949 Simone de Beauvoir wrote the For that reason Marie Curie felt so proud first volume of her book The Second Sex, she when her daughter Irene, who was only 7 knew perfectly well what she was facing, she years old, answered her in a letter dated had to go back hundreds of years. For this in 1908: “My sweet Mé: I’ve solved one of reason she started off her book by quoting your problems at the first go; the one of the Pythagoras: “There is a good principle that age of the boy who in 3 years’ time will be has created order, light and man, and a bad the square of the age he was 3 years ago principle that has created chaos, darkness [she develops the problem to her and her and woman”1. verification] I send you a kiss”5. For her part, Obviously, in the early beginnings of the Curie congratulates Irene on her sixteenth Bauhaus they were also familiar with the birthday from London, with a letter full Pythagoreans. When mention was made of of tenderness, but with an additional little the circular and the cosmic, the suctioning, something at the end saying “I send you a kiss the feminine, the soft shapes versus the with my whole heart, my daughter, and also a square and the active and masculine2, they procedure for construction of an ellipse that were going back to the Pythagorean Table perhaps you know. Your mother”6. Obviously, of Opposites where Limited (peras) was Irene was quite certain right from her birth oddness, unity, right, masculine, rest, straight, that she could cope with ellipses, curves as light, good and square. On the contrary, well as with squares and straight lines. It is Unlimited (apeiron) meant evenness, not surprising to know that Irene and her plurality, left, feminine, movement, curve, sister Éve spent one or two summers with darkness, bad and oblong. her mother, Albert Einstein and his son in the Swiss valley of Engadine. It is no surprise Many women began to study assuming either that Einstein belonged to the Circle of that peras and apeiron were two scientific- Friends of the Bauhaus as a member. philosophical principles and therefore unalterable. They also assumed that The education received too by Wera Meyer- mathematics, spatial conception, the art of Waldeck, one of the women architects creating and abstraction were not, to put it that graduated at the Bauhaus, spent her mildly, their strong points. It is, therefore, not childhood in Alexandria. The First World surprising that the student of the Bauhaus War made it unfeasible to extend their stay Helene Nonné-Schmidt should state that “the in Egypt, so the family moved to the Swiss woman who is engaged in jobs of an artistic valley of Engadine, where both she and her nature generally acts more successfully in sisters received their education at home, in the sphere of two-dimensional surfaces” and accordance with the German curricula. In that “this is undoubtedly due to the fact that 1928, when interviewed in the student journal she lacks the force of spatial representation, Bauhaus, she showed her versatility in the which is innate in man”3. Even the student following manner: Alma Buscher, who had started her studies in the textiles workshop and managed to “My manner of viewing life, in the broadest change to the carpentry shop of the Bauhaus sense, is to remain steadfast to my present in Weimar, already felt too unconventional way of living. Take an interest in everything, on account of this and in view of the great understand everything I study, without success she obtained with her toys, she ceasing to be critical. I had that way of being contented herself with her tiny constructions, even before coming to the Bauhaus. It has claiming that “I don’t want to do anything only been corroborated, because here is else, not cubism, not expressionism, just an where I have found it. amusing play of colours, done with shiny angular forms based on the principles of the This is why I also want to broaden the blocks of old constructions”4. Yet, curiously, founding principles of the Bauhaus even the first symptom of scientific and artistic more. Its general interests are still confined knowledge, was already present in them and to too narrow an objective. For me literature, these women could not repress their desire to dance or music are just as interesting as learn. In fact, their notes and drawings betray shapes, colour, mathematics or any problem the fact that neither resigned themselves of statics. In a place like Dessau, where very nor ended up believing what they initially few stimuli arrive from the outside, it is here proclaimed. We still preserve some of Helen’s inside where a larger number of things have splendid exercises of descriptive geometry in to happen to prevent us from focusing on an Klee’s class (the student Jan van der Linden excessively partial view.”7 admitted he was unable to copy due to their complexity) and of Alma, some Construction For her, there were no longer polarities or notes with examples of foundations and floor dividing lines; as literature, music or colour frames amongst others (it seems that the were just as interesting as mathematics or any diminutive, even though bright and glossy, problem of statics. JOSENIA HERVÁS 165 Wera had the privilege of studying at the aspire to being a member of society invested received a call from the University of Harvard Bauhaus with the three directors that the with equal rights to the man, her equal in in the USA and Professor Mies van der Rohe, School had. A diligent student, persevering all concepts.” Bebel’s party companion, the with whom I did my final-year degree project, in her work, she worked together with feminist Clara Zetkin, had her photograph went on to give classes at the University of Gropius on the interior design of the Dessau taken by Lucía Moholy-Nagy in 1930. She was Chicago. Both of them still continue teaching). Employment Office built between 1928- 1929, already an old lady, but the depth of her look as appears in her Bauhaus diploma. After and her worn hands made her a venerable In 1934 I took up a job as a draughtsman at being hired by Hannes Meyer at his Berlin person worthy of passing down to posterity, Junkers because they did not allow me to studio to undertake all furnishing and service in the eyes of the great photographer. practise as an architect. In 1937, when the aspects of the Trade Union School in Bernau, period of the great unemployment had come Mies van der Rohe was finally the master who Wera’s employment situation at the time to an end, I was allowed to hold a post in signed her professional qualification degree of the German political crossroads in the the Reich autobahn network, in the Works in architecture in 1932. nineteen thirties was more complex. In a Division. In this section my work concerned clearly discriminatory scenario on a racial the architectural form of the bridges and I Wera’s professional career was tarnished by level, the question of gender became a participated in the great “Elbehochbrücke” the abrupt events that overshadowed her problem of lesser importance. Since Wera did bridge over the Elba project. This project country. The arrival of the Nazis prevented not marry and had no children, her situation was followed by the planning of a tertiary numerous groups of professionals from as a young Arian professional kept her out of office and independent post offices. In 1939 continuing to work either because of their work in her early days, but she quickly rose in I transferred from the Works Division to the Jewish blood, or else due to their political category and went on to occupy positions of Reich railway network Building Division, ideas. Yet being a woman also made a the highest responsibility while the men were at my own request. In 1942 a distinguished difference too. At a time of extremely high away at the front. colleague procured me a post as an architect unemployment, the law encouraged married in the Construction Division of the company women to give up their jobs and then the It was when the war finished that she was Berg-Und Hüttenwerks-Gesellschaft, at its couple were rewarded for the vacancy confronted with a compromising situation subsidiary Karwin-Trzynietz. I took up the created. Providing the nation with new again. First she had to show that she had not post on 1 May 1942, assuming responsibility births also had a monetary incentive. The collaborated with Hitler’s regime in any way, for the design line as well as the development fact of taking a step back to leave the few and then try and maintain the same status of of the company’s mining and metalworking employment opportunities to the male gender professional responsibility that she obtained plants and offices. I worked at Karwin until was not only part of the ideology fomented by when she did not have to compete with men.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Aalto and History
    Keynote - Alvar Aalto Researchers’ Network March 12th – 14th 2012, Seinäjoki and Jyväskylä, Finland Aalto and history Aino Niskanen Professor Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture Department of Architecture Finland [email protected] Publisher Alvar Aalto Museum ISSN-L 2323-6906 ISSN 2323-6906 www.alvaraalto.fi www.alvaraaltoresearch.fi Keynote - Alvar Aalto Researchers’ Network March 12th – 14th 2012, Seinäjoki and Jyväskylä, Finland www.alvaraaltoresearch.fi In the present seminar the history of Alvar Aalto’s work is being dealt with on many different levels. As an introduction, I should like to discuss Aalto’s relationship with history. Many of the presentations over the course of the seminar will no doubt take these issues further. What do we know about Aalto’s formative years as an architect? During the period he was studying at the Helsinki Institute of Technology, 1916-1921, the teaching there had a strong emphasis on history: examples from the antiquities beckoned as a foundation for everything new. (Fig 1) Fig 1. Alvar Aalto in 1916. Photo: Schildt, Göran: The Early Years, p. 75. Nevertheless, those teachers considered important by Aalto were, according to Göran Schildt, above all important as pedagogues of attitudes: Usko Nyström, who taught the history of architecture of the antiquities and Middle Ages, emphasised the values of modesty, humanity, vitality, comfort and practicality. Armas Lindgren, who taught more recent architectural history, awoke a love in Aalto for Italian Renaissance architecture and an understanding of the organic thinking of Jugend architecture.1 In the paintings he made during his youth Aalto often portrayed historically layered urban milieus.
    [Show full text]
  • Alvar Aalto and the Theory of Play: Through Analysis on Alvar Aalto’S Furniture Design
    Alvar Aalto and the theory of play: Through analysis on Alvar Aalto’s furniture design Mayu Kamamoto / Osaka University / Osaka / Japan Blucher Design Abstract Proceedings November 2016, Play was an important concept for Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto (1898-1976). He Number 1, Volume 1 http://www.proceeding emphasized the importance of play in design activities. Aalto seems to have been influenced by s.blucher.com.br/articl Yrjö Hirn (1870-1952), a Finnish aesthetician and author of Barnlek [Child’s play, 1916]. From e-list/icdhs2016/list the late 1920s to 1940s, Aalto designed not only buildings, but also furniture. In functionalism, which spread from the early 1920s, experimentation with wood for furniture played a very im- portant role for Aalto. He emphasized that this experimentation was closely related to the idea of play. This study demonstrates Aalto’s suggestive idea through an analysis of his furniture de- sign. It can be said that the concept of play guided him to develop this idea. Keywords Alvar Aalto, Yrjö Hirn, play, furniture design, functionalism Introduction Alvar Aalto (1898-1976) was a Finnish architect and talented designer of furniture, glassware, lamps, and so on. He placed a lot of emphasis on play, a trait he shared with the Finnish aesthetician Yrjö Hirn (1870-1952). In 1916, Hirn wrote the book Barnlek [Child’s play], where he explained the importance of play. Aalto wrote an article entitled ‘Koetalo, Muuratsalo’ [Experimental house at Muuratsalo], pub- lished in the Finnish architectural journal Arkkitehti [Architect], where he stated the following: Whether or not Yrjö Hirn was the direct cause, at any rate the influence of his personality con- tributed to my firm conviction and instinctive feeling that in the midst of our laboring, calculating, utilitarian age, we must continue to believe in the crucial significance of play when building a society for human beings, those grown-up children.
    [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]
  • The Utzon Paradigm
    THE UTZON PARADIGM Roger Tyrrell Co-Director of the Jørn Utzon Research Network (JURN) and Adrian Carter Co- Director of the Jørn Utzon Research Network (JURN), Director of the Utzon Research Center, Aalborg University. RE-CONSIDERING UTZON “Comparable in subtle ways to the protean achievements of Le Corbusier, Utzon’s architecture emerges today as paradigmatic at many levels not least of which is the manner in which, from the beginning of his career, he would challenge the assumed superiority of Eurocentric culture.” (Frampton. K. 2003 p 6) This Paper strives to address three objectives. The first is to discuss the Utzon’s oeuvre from a paradigmatic perspective, the second to layer that paradigm within two distinct but interconnected frameworks. The third objective is to explore the fusion of this dichotomous paradigm through the concept of ‘poetic conjunction’. Jørn Utzon (1918-2008) is now internationally recognised as one of the most original, innovative and socially concerned of modern architects, perhaps the last great exponent of the humanistic Nordic tradition within modern architecture. He is the architect of what is still widely considered the most noble and humane housing built in Denmark, a simple, yet poetic modern church at Bagsværd and the most iconic and popular building of the 20th Century, his great unfinished masterpiece, the Sydney Opera House. (Fig 1) The Opera House has become the symbol of not just Sydney, but also Australia; that owes it origins to the maritime environment of Aalborg, where Jørn Utzon spent his youth, and the inspiration of his father Aage Utzon, an esteemed yacht designer.
    [Show full text]
  • A Deep Organic Re-Reading of Alvar Aalto's Design Approach
    A Deep Organic Re-reading of Alvar Aalto’s Design Approach Ari Hynynen Tampere University of Technology [email protected] Abstract The conceptual framework of ’organic architecture’ is the most common theory used in analysing Alvar Aalto’s life’s work. Actually, it could not be considered a real theory, but a quite fuzzy concept due to its many miscellaneous interpretations. Aalto himself talked about organic architecture without never explicating properly what it means. In this respect, more research should be done. For example, Aalto’s regional plans deserve to be analysed from this point of view. Perhaps the most favourable case is the Kokemäenjoki valley regional plan, for it offers new keys for interpretation due to its emphasis on textual representation. The other key used in this study is Goethe’s philosophy of science. Many writers have noticed its resemblance to Aalto’s thinking and approach. Unfortunately the argumentation is too often superficial, although more thorough processing seems to evoke new ideas on Aalto’s design approach, as well as on organic architecture on a more general level. Surprisingly these ideas appear quite topical in our digitalizing world. Introduction A vast number of different kinds of analyses have been published on the life’s work of architect Alvar Aalto (1898-1976). One of the most often applied interpretational frameworks has been the theory of organic architecture. The term ‘theory’ in this context, however, is misleading, in that there are almost as many interpretations of organic architecture as there are writers. The term ‘organic’ includes ‘naturalness’ – a concept that has been interpreted as equally often as the imitation of natural forms as the imitation of natural processes.
    [Show full text]
  • Alvar Aalto and Jean-Jacques Baruël
    Working papers - Alvar Aalto Researchers’ Network March 12th – 14th 2012, Seinäjoki and Jyväskylä, Finland Alvar Aalto and Jean-Jacques Baruël Jaime J. Ferrer Forés Ph D. Architect Barcelona School of Architecture. Barcelona TECH Spain [email protected] Publisher Alvar Aalto Museum ISSN-L 2323-6906 ISSN 2323-6906 www.alvaraalto.fi www.alvaraaltoresearch.fi Working papers -Alvar Aalto Researchers’ Network March 12th – 14th 2012, Seinäjoki and Jyväskylä, Finland www.alvaraaltoresearch.fi Introduction Alvar Aalto has a prominent place among modern architecture's masters and his widely acclaimed work spanning the decades between 1921 and 1976, with classicist beginnings, a functionalist period and a maturity characterized by the search for a synthesis between tradition and modernity is extraordinary, not only on account of its, but also because of the instruments, methods and reflections about the design process that his works offered: Aalto's architecture, all too frequently contemplated as a purely personal architecture, contains deep-rooted lessons and even its organic approach, if wisely applied, is transmissible. Aalto’s dedicated explorations and refining of significant universal themes in architecture provides an enormous resource for architects in the future. His timeless organic approach to design, rather than historic style ensures his continued relevance. This article explores Aalto's influence on the career of the Danish Architect Jean-Jacques Baruël. The article is divided in several sections. Firstly, the article present briefly Jean-Jacques Baruël's career. Secondly, the article will introduce the main distinctive characteristics of Jean-Jacques Baruël's architecture and Aalto's influence. It does not to attempt to describe his extensive work and projects, but to point out the central elements in his efforts.
    [Show full text]
  • Ld1 in PURSUIT of TRUTH
    IN PURSUIT OF TRUTH Essays on the Philosophy of Karl Popper on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday Edited by PA UL LEVINSON \ with Fore words by (t 21). Isaac Asimov and Helmut Schmidt Chancellor, Federal Republic of Germany I1b2. f'.- t4 z;-Ld1 HUMANITIES PRESS INC. Atlantic Highlands, NJ 248 liv PURSUIT OP TROT/I hope and no proof is Stoicism and Judeo-Christian religion, in which irrationalism and stoicism alternate. Yet there is no inconsistency in the philosophy of hope without proof, especially as a moral injunction to oiler the benefit of doubt wherever at all possible. Now, the philosophy of hope without proof is not exactly Popper's. It began with T. H. Huxley, the famous militant Darwinian, and H. C. Wells. Its best expression is in Bertrand Russell's Free A Popperian Harvest0 Man's Worship," the manifesto of hope born out of despair, clinging to both despair and reason most heroically. This famous paper, published in Russell's W. W. BARTLEY, III Philosophical Essays of 1910, is a sleeper. It was hardly noticed by It is by its methods rather than its subject-matter that philosophy contemporaries and followers, yet now it is the expression of current religion, is to be distinguished from other arts or sciences. ofcurrent scientific ethos. Here, I think, Popper's philosophy of science gave it A. J. Ayer, 1955' substance. Philosophers arc as free as others to use any method in searching Or perhaps Russell's "Free Man's Worship" gives Popper's philosophy of truth. There is no tnethod peculiar to philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Architecture As Experience
    Architectural Research in Finland, vol.2, no.1 (2018) 9 Architecture as Experience The fusion of the world and the self Juhani Pallasmaa Aalto University (professor emeritus) [email protected] Abstract The complex phenomenon of architecture consists of too many irreconcilable and conflicting categories of thought, intention, emotion, interaction and action to be condensed into the framework of a single theory of architecture. Besides, art and architecture are constituted in their mental encounter and experience instead of the material works themselves. Works of architecture and art are encountered and lived rather than understood intellectually. Architecture is commonly understood, taught, practiced and evaluated primarily as a visual art form. However, we encounter buildings and environments through our entire sense of being. Perceptions interact with memory and imagination to constitute an experience with meaning and temporal duration. Art and architecture are essentially relational phenomena as they express our being in the world instead of themselves or their authors. The interest in architecture as experience also directs our attention to such diffuse and neglected experiences as atmospheres, ambiences, feelings, moods and attunements. Keywords: experience, existential sense, relational phenomena. Introduction Modern architectural theory, education and practice have regarded architecture as visually aestheticised spaces and material structures, and primarily studied their historical, functional, technical and formal characteristics. The analyses have focused on architecture as physical objects and spaces and their geometric and compositional qualities, as well as the representation of these properties in drawings. As architecture does not possess a comprehensive theory of its own, the point of view and method of research have usually been borrowed from other disciplines in accordance with changing interests and fashions; often the applicability of the chosen theoretical frameworks have been highly questionable in the specific reality of architecture.
    [Show full text]
  • An Interview with Kenneth Frampton
    $UFKLWHFWXUDO McQuillan, T 2016 On the Grounds of Modern Architecture: An Interview with Kenneth Frampton. Architectural Histories, 4(1): 20, pp. 1–5, DOI: +LVWRULHV http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ah.231 INTERVIEW On the Grounds of Modern Architecture: An Interview with Kenneth Frampton Thomas McQuillan In connection with the publication of Kenneth Frampton’s A Genealogy of Modern Architecture: Compara- tive Critical Analysis of Built Form, Thomas McQuillan conducted an interview in March of 2016 with Frampton to discuss the book’s background and the implications publication has for contemporary archi- tecture. The book consists of close comparative analyses of 28 modern buildings, two by two, in order to interrogate their spatial, constructive, envelopmental, and programmatic characteristics. Prefaced by a synoptic note, with a highly concentrated exposition of the history of modern architecture, and build- ing on his reading of Arendt’s The Human Condition, the book seeks the meaning of architecture in the tectonic — the way it is built — in more than just the spaces it affords and the images that it projects. Frampton shares the history of his ideas on tectonics and the fragility of the modern project in today’s neoliberal climate. About Kenneth Frampton first understand its own condition as it is drawing to a Kenneth Frampton is the Ware Professor of Architecture close. There, Frampton struck a somber tone, noting that at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and ‘architects are confronted today by a crisis of value com- Preservation at Columbia University and a leading voice parable to that experienced by Gottfried Semper in 1851’, in the history of modernist architecture.
    [Show full text]
  • Aalto, His Row Houses and Their Inhabitants
    Working papers - Alvar Aalto Researchers’ Network March 12th – 14th 2012, Seinäjoki and Jyväskylä, Finland Aalto, his row houses and their inhabitants Rainier Hoddé Professor Researcher at the Centre de recherche sur l’habitat - Laboratoire sur l’architecture, la ville, l’urbanisme et l’environnement (CRH-LAVUE; Unité mixte de recherche n°7218 of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique) and Professor at the Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon (until september 2013) and de Paris la Villette (from september 2013) [email protected] Publisher Alvar Aalto Museum ISSN-L 2323-6906 ISSN 2323-6906 www.alvaraalto.fi www.alvaraaltoresearch.fi Working papers - Alvar Aalto Researchers’ Network March 12th – 14th 2012, Seinäjoki and Jyväskylä, Finland www.alvaraaltoresearch.fi 1. Introduction: from widely recognized work to largely unknown production At a time when French society is seeking a course between collective housing, or social housing estates, which it has been partially demolishing since 2003, and detached houses, whose energy insecurity has been in the spotlight since 2010, row-houses, more commonly found in northern European countries, seem a fecund compromise and Alvar Aalto’s row houses offer avenues worth exploring: - they provide architectural answers that seem promising, such as the particularly well-known one of row houses in a fan-shaped arrangement that he invented and where meet both an aesthetic and a functional need - they show how an architect who is renowned for exceptional buildings takes on minor, more modest, programs - they are easier to inquire with the residents who live in and use them in comparison with larges publics buildings, whereas enquiries protocols are more complex.
    [Show full text]
  • The Idea of the Primary Stage in Alvar Aalto's Drawings
    Alvar Aalto Researchers’ Network Seminar – Why Aalto? 9-10 June 2017, Jyväskylä, Finland From Alvar Aalto to Network City – Reflections from the 1940s Kokemäenjoki regional plan Ari Hynynen Professor Tampere University of Technology, Laboratory of Architecture Seinäjoki Urban Laboratory POBox 600, FI-33101 Tampere, Finland Tel +358 40 839 8643, Email [email protected] The 3rd Alvar Aalto Researchers Network Seminar - Why Aalto? 9-10 June 2017, Jyväskylä, Finland From Alvar Aalto to Network City Reflections from the 1940s Kokemäenjoki regional plan Ari Hynynen, Professor Tampere University of Technology, Laboratory of Architecture Seinäjoki Urban Laboratory Introduction Already in the 1980s, Jere Maula, professor in urban planning at the Tampere University of Technology, drew attention to how Alvar Aalto’s Kokemäenjoki regional plan was ahead of its time (Nupponen 2000, 69). The plan, which was completed in 1942, raised themes and planning principles that were not present in research or official planning documents until in the 1980s when discussions on the regionalisation of cities and the network-like form of regional structures had just begun. In the 1990s, and at the beginning of the 21st century, the “network city” metaphor, developed by researchers mainly in the German-speaking Europe, began to gain more diverse content, as well as stabilise and gradually move to governmental strategies. The key principles of the Kokemäenjoki plan included processing of technical infrastructure, construction and landscape as a single network-like entity. Aalto paid attention to the way how communities emerged spontaneously as parts of this entity. He saw the development of a region as a dynamic process creating a new community type that was inappropriate with old categories.
    [Show full text]
  • The Role of Alvar Aalto in Developing the Maturity of Jørn Utzon's Work
    Alvar Aalto Researchers’ Network Seminar – Why Aalto? 9-10 June 2017, Jyväskylä, Finland Aalto through young Utzon’s eyes: The role of Alvar Aalto in developing the maturity of Jørn Utzon’s work Chiu Chen-Yu Assistant Professor Department of Architecture, Bilkent University +90 5316 146 326 +90 312 290 2590 [email protected] FF 206, Department of Architecture Bilkent University, 06800 Ankara, TURKEY Aalto through young Utzon’s eyes: The role of Alvar Aalto in developing the maturity of Jørn Utzon’s work CHIU Chen-Yu, Bilkent University Helyaneh Aboutalebi Tabrizi, Bilkent University Introduction There is no doubt that the work of Alvar Aalto (1898-1976) played an important role in the maturity of architectural design of Jørn Utzon (1918-2008). Despite Utzon openly and repeatedly admitted his learning from Aalto, what was the interrelationship between these two master architects, what was Utzon’s perception of Aalto’s work and how Utzon interpreted the ideas and ideals received from Aalto’s work, are all unknown and unheard. By surveying the architectural collection both of Aalto and Utzon, this article reconstructs their communications in-between and reviews Utzon’s study on Aalto’s work through his own photography images and book collection, as well as building excursions. In addition, it constructs a series of analytical comparisons between the studied work of Aalto and Utzon’s architectural creation. The found analogies in-between are served as the rationale for arguing Utzon’s learning from Aalto. However, Utzon did not simply imitate the manners of Aalto, and Utzon seemed to interpret the received concepts from Aalto with his own beliefs and interests, as well as with other influences.
    [Show full text]