Thursday, June 10, 2010

Day 10 - Helsinki, Alvar Aalto and the Kulttuuritalo

This day we saw four Alvar Aalto buildings in ONE day. First, a bit of background on Alvar Aalto. Born in 1898, Aalto is one of Finland's most prolific and celebrated Modernist architects. Aalto is world-famous in the architecture community and some of you in New England are probably familiar with the Baker House at MIT in Cambridge, MA. Aalto is famous mostly for his use of brick, although Finlandia Hall, one of his most easily recognized buildings, has a white marble exterior. Aalto passed away in 1976 and has since become iconic for Finns.

We first visited the Kulttuuritalo, or House of Culture, which was completed in 1958. Originally designed as a meeting hall for the Finnish Communist Party, the House has since played host to performers such as Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and AC/DC, and others of similar fame. One look at the concert hall and it's difficult to imagine Aalto not considering the possibility of music performance:


A closer look at the building's surfaces and materials revealed a kind of exhaustion that has set in. Just about everything in the building seems like it's original and hasn't been replaced since 1958. Of course the building has been cleaned and the walls probably repainted, but the wood finishes, the seats, floor tile and similar details appear tired. It's hard to say for sure if that's what Aalto anticipated when he selected materials and furniture, since he uses copper flashing quite frequently in his buildings, which develops a greenish patina over time and is used for the very reason.

Despite the worn-out appearance, the building itself was interesting to examine. Aalto develops a manageable but not simple relationship between the wedge-shaped plan and the vertical movement between different types of spaces. I did some quick drawings in my sketchbook to get as much of an overview of the building as possible.


The drawings are getting more informative, but I still put too many on a single page. But the different views gave me enough information for an axonometric drawing on the next page.


The hardest thing about axons is not drawing them (at least not if you've laid out the information in preliminary drawings like I did above) but selecting the right view. In this drawing, the stage is closest to the viewer, but I should have flipped the view so that you are looking through the seats, the waiting room below and the lobby below that. Unfortunately I got too far into the drawing to turn back, but I'd like to redraw it at some point soon. Nothing is every set in stone, or safe from revision.



I feel bad making you all wait so many days between posts, but I'm way too tired to finish this day, so I'll give you one building and finished the rest (hopefully) tomorrow. Thanks for you patience, but I will not let you know how badly behind I am!

Aalto will say goodnight to you all for me from his own Finlandia Hall.

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