Year 8

Dear readers,

Eight years ago I started this blog with the ambiguous goal to visit all Alvar Aalto sites around the world. Now eight years later, I have almost reached my goal, with only a few buildings left on my list. Also in this year I was again able to visit new and exciting Aalto sites. A special highlight certainly was the visit to Villa Schildt in Tammisaari that had been opened to the public for the very first time this summer. The remaining site visits focused more on Aalto's work in my current home town, Jyväskylä. While having a closer look at Aalto's first works also attending the Aalto Week brought many new in-sights on my understanding of Alvar Aalto's work. Besides that, it was also exciting to re-discover the University of Jyväskylä's main building, that had undergone a very long renovation. It was interesting to see the building brought back into its original stage.

While slowly running out of new sites to discover I decided now to focus more on buildings that I had already visited in the past. Especially in Jyväskylä there are several buildings that are currently under renovation and I am happy to report more about them once they have been brought back to their old glories. Nevertheless, there are still a few buildings outside Jyväskylä that I haven't visited yet. On top of the list certainly is the Library in Vyborg / Russia. I hope I will be able to visit this exciting site in the upcoming summer. Also have I kept an eye on the guided tours of Finlandia Hall in Helsinki and the Villa Kokkonen in Järvenpää but unfortunately so far they have never matched with my busy schedule. I hope, however, that I will be successful in visit those three sites in the upcoming year.

Until now, I would like to thank all of you for your active readership and for leaving so many friendly and encouraging comments on my blog. As always please stay tuned!