Aalto's Experimental House

Site No. 36: Muuratsalo Experimental House (1952-54)

Entrance ticket

Aalto's Experitmental House can be found around 20 kilometre south from Jyväskylä in Muuratsalo. Alvar and his wife Elissa Aalto had their summer home built on the island of Muuratsalo in the early 1950s. Also nowadays Aalto's offsprings are using the site to spend their summer vacation. Anyhow three times a week during the summer the site is open also for visitors but the area can only be entered with a guide and visits have to be arranged beforehand through the Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyväskylä. On a nice summer day about a week ago I decided to make a bicycle tour towards Muuratsalo. Before I left Jyväskylä I had to register for the guided tour at the Aalto Museum. After my place was confirmed I left for the 20 kilometre ride which took me about an hour and a half. Just at the right time at 1.30 pm I arrived at the gate of the estate where the Experimental House is located. The guided tour took about 45 minutes and the guide showed us first the boat designed by Alvar Aalto in the 1950s which was unfortunatelly not in such a good shape. The boats name is "Nemo propheta in patria" and was a revolutinary design the time it was build. The boat is stored in a special hangar designed by two young Norwegian architects to protect it from further destruction as displayed in the pictures below.

Next the guide showed us the smoke sauna which was also designed by Aalto. Commonly saunas in Finland are four-sided little buildings but this sauna is different as it has five corners. The sauna is still used by the Aalto family and sometimes exclusively also by executives from Jyväskylä.On the top of the building trees are growing, this was intended by Aalto so that the building does better fit into its environment.

Finally we arrived at the Experimental House which is surrounded by trees such as the entire estate is covered by forest and very nicely located by the lake. Thus this was the summer home of Aalto to rest during the summer in this house he carried out experiments and try out new methods of construction as displayed in the pictures below.

A lot of  ideas have been realized in various buildings and it is truely interesting to see this kind of "playground" where Aalto experimented with new ideas and had first a look how this and that would harmonize before building it in a large scale. Visiting this experimental house is a real must for any Alvar Aalto fan. Also the inside of the building was viewable and most of the interior was still like in the 1950s when Aalto spend his summers there. It is needless to mention that also the interior and all the furniture were designed by the owner himself.