The First Year

Exactly today one year ago I started with this blog. The idea of this blog was stated in my first post: To visit all buildings designed by Alvar Alvar in the world, altogether 80 sites. So far I visited 37 sites, all of them located in Finland. This summer I visited all major Aalto cities: Helsinki, Seinäjoki, Alajärvi, Rovaniemi and of course my current home town Jyväskylä. Especially in Jyväskylä I visited many sites for a second time and some of them like my University even every day. Hereby I have taken many additional pictures which I have now added to the existing ones. I have basically redesigned most of my older posts from last year and the early one's from this year. Just go, have a look and enjoy! Also in the coming year several visits to exiting Aalto sites are already planned so stay tunned!

Aalto in Muurame

Site No. 37: Muurame Church (1926-29)

Today was a really nice and sunny autumn day and I decided to make a littel trip with the local bus to visit Muurame. Muurame is a small town about 15 kilometres south-west from Jyväskylä and it takes about 20 minutes by city-bus to get there. In Muurame one of Aalto's early works can be found the Muurame Church built in the late 1920s. Located not far from the city centre of Muurame the church stands on a hill quite well covered by trees. The church is located at Kirkkotie 7 not far from Highway 9 Jyväskylä-Tampere.

In 1924 Alvar Aalto visited Italy for the first time and he was impressed by the architettura minore of small, simple churches in rural settings. Many of his travell impression were realized in the design of these very church. This can quite easily be seen by the design of the tall tower common in Italy but also by the renaissance architectural elements used at the side-entrance area as shown in the picture below.

During a second visit in Summer 2012 - this time by bicycle - I had the chance to get also an view of the insight of Muurame Church: