ALVAR AALTO

This year the world celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of renowned Finnish architect, town planner and designer Alvar Aalto. There are several important exhibitions taking place in Scandinavia and the Museum of Modern Art in New York mounted a large retrospective of Aalto's work in the beginning of the year. The Museum's Architecture and Design Department rates Alvar Aalto as one of this century's three most important architects together with Frank Lloyd Wright and

Louis Kahn.

The great thing about Aalto's architecture is that it married functionalism with nature. Aalto combines the regular square shapes dictated by the functional demands of modern buildings with curving, irregular forms and rhythmic fan-shaped compositions. Nowadays buildings often contain
historic or technological references. Critics like Michael Sorkin say that they much prefer Alvar Aalto's references to nature, that are so much more "sexy".

Aalto's lifelong quest was "to give modern architecture a human face". You can see that in the smallest details, such as the design of a door handle "because even the smallest daily chore can be humanized and invested with harmony." In his light fittings, Aalto tried to humanize artificial light so that it at the same time was direct, filtered, indirect and reflected all at once, just like daylight is in nature. It is in the details that one can sense Aalto's poetic tone emerge, sometimes from quite anonymous buildings. He used brick, wood and marble, and an interest in historical and vernacular buildings for his richly varied designs in his quest to "humanize" architecture. He wanted the primary user, "the little man", to be the orbiter of his success.

Alvar Aalto (1898-1976) was not only extremely creative, he was also one of the most influential modern architects of the twentieth century, whose remarkable fifty-four year career makes him also one of the most productive. Of the same generation as Ludwig Mies vaan der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Louis I. Kahn, Aalto saw his career develop in many ways in the same way as his contemporaries: a neoclassical beginning; a lucid "functional style"; and important later work characterized by expressive and humanist aspirations, which sought to balance regional and international influences, modern and ancient architecture, and nature with an increasingly standardized technology.

Aalto continues to have a profound influence both within Finland and on an international level. He completed a large number of diverse commissions, primarily in Finland and Scandinavia but also in the United States and Europe, that ranged from factories, offices and apartment buildings to churches, town halls and especially cultural institutions such as auditoria, museums and libraries.

Aalto's first building in the United States, the Finnish Pavilion for the 1939 New York World's Fair firmly established him as one of the most important architects of his day. The interior's distinctive design, with its dominating sinuous, three tiered wooden walls, synthesized many of the forms and ideas that made his work so singular. Upon seeing it, Frank Lloyd Wright declared, "Aalto is a genius."

The Mount Angel Abbey Library in St. Benedict, Oregon (1964-1970) was Aalto's last building in the United States. Testimony to his abiding interest in human-centric architecture, it is organized around a central, open circular well, ringed by curving reading tables and radiating stacks, creating a space that is simultaneously lively yet contemplative.

In Helsinki the enormous white marble Finlandia Hall is on every tourist's itinerary, but the most interesting Aalto buildings are residences in the suburb of Sunila. Architects make a pilgrimage to Villa Mairea near Bj6meborg that Aalto created for industrialists Maire and Harry Gullichsen, and that is often regarded as his greatest masterpiece. On the Juväskylä University campus is one of Aalto's most interesting buildings and in Säynatsalo the Aalto-designed town hall will soon house a permanent Alvar Aalto museum.

Most people today know Aalto through his "Savoy" vase, that Iittala has edited in many sizes and colours. The vase design from 1936 that got its shape from a tree trunk, was originally called "the eskimo woman's leather shorts" and much criticized for its "amoeba" shape during a time when classicism almost reigned sovereign. The vase and the light birch furniture by Aalto (that is still manufactured by Artek that was started by the Gullichsens of Villa Mairea) are perfect Aalto souvenirs, that demonstrate the greatness of the architect and also symbolize his karma - that there is hope somewhere in between human and material values.