Aalto in Rovaniemi - Update

Hi there,

after a seven year's break I made again my way to visit Finnish Lapland. Passing through the capital of Lapland, Rovaniemi, I had the chance to visit once again the Administrative and Cultural Center designed by Alvar Aalto. In addition, I had also the possibility to visit the two missing Aalto sights in Rovaniemi which are less well known and to which I hadn't pay much attention during my last major visit in the summer of 2011. But before presenting the two new sights, I first want to share a few current pictures taken from the Administrative and Cultural Center in Rovaniemi, containing the Lappia Hall, the Rovaniemi Library and the Town Hall of Rovaniemi.

The Administrative and Cultural Center in Rovaniemi is a must visit for anybody interested in Alvar Aalto's work as these are certainly among the finest buildings Aalto has designed.

Site No. 77: Maison Aho in Rovaniemi (1964-65)

Between 1958 and 1963 Aalto designed three commercial and residential buildings for the local business man Aarne Aho which I presented in an earlier post on Aalto sites in Rovaniemi. These buildings can be found right in the city centre of Rovaniemi, located in Koskikatu. A bit further down the same street Aalto also designed a private house for the Aho family which is less well known and I was not aware of this building during my previous visit in Rovaniemi. The exact address is Pohjolankatu 32.

The building dates from Aalto's late red brick phase as it was erected in the mid 1960s. It stands in a spacious garden-like surrounding, however, as like many other private houses designed by Alvar Aalto, only the main entrance and a window can be seen from the street. Most of what the outside visitor can see from the building are red brick walls. The house is private property and unfortunately not open to the public. It can only be viewed from the street.

Unless Villa Mairea and Maison Carre, Maison Aro shares in common with these brilliant Aalto works the fact that all three private buildings house art collections. According to local sources the floor plan of the building is slightly fan-shaped, opening out into a living room with a large corner window. A curving gallery wall, lit by a skylight provides indirect natural light to the artworks.

Although the house can only be viewed from the outside, as it is only a few meters from the actual city centre of Rovaniemi away a brief visit to see the exterior is recommended as long as one respects the fact that this is a private house.


Site No. 78: Korkalorinne Housing Area in Rovaniemi (1956-60)

Another Aalto site I was not aware of during my last Rovaniemi visit is the Korkalorinne Housing Area located in the Korkalorinne district. Korkalorinne is about two kilometers from the city centre of Rovaniemi away but can easily be reached by foot. Just follow local signs towards Korkalorinne, it is a nice walk through a quiet residential area with beautiful wooden houses build after the war.

Korkealorinne Housing Area was designed by Alvar Aalto in the mid-late 1950s in an effort to respond to the post-war housing shortage. The majority of Rovaniemi got destroyed during the second world war and the lack of housing was a huge problem at that time. The entire housing area consists of two four-story apartment blocks and three two-storey terraced houses.

Departing from Rovaniemi

Although my visit to Rovaniemi was rather brief this time, I am glad that I had the chance to catch up on the still missing Aalto sites and take a look at some of his less well known works.

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!

Alvar Aalto Week in Jyväskylä

Hi there!

During the last week of August (27.8-2.9.2018) the Aalto Foundation in collaboration with the City of Jyväskylä and other partners in the Central Finland region organized the very first Alvar Aalto Week in and around the Aalto City Jyväskylä. It was a fantastic week with a rich program and many great opportunities to have a look behind the scenes and get access to places that are normally not open to the public. I was lucky enough to find time to participate in many of the events and this post is dedicated to the first Alvar Aalto Week in Jyväskylä.

The week started off for me on Tuesday with the rare opportunity to visit the Aalto Foundation's archive that is located in Jyväskylä not far from one of Aalto's first realized projects, the Nuora House, which I reported about earlier this year. Although the Aalto Foundation's chairmen had invited me already last year to visit the archive, I was glad that I had the chance to participate in one of the guided tours that were offered during this theme week. Indeed, I was lucky as I was the only participant in one of the hourly organized guided tours and received therefore a more customized tour based on my own needs and interests. It was impressive to see how many documents the archive has on file, we are talking here about tens of thousands of documents. These were not only all the original drawings and pictures taken of all the Alvar Aalto buildings but many more documents such as business letters as well as personal letters of Alvar Aalto, almost all publications ever produced about Alvar Aalto and even invoices his office had issued for their architectural services. This archive is certainly a gold mine for any researcher or historian who wants to understand better who Alvar Aalto was and how this translated into his work. I had a very inspiring conversation with the staff of the archive that helped me a lot in increasing my understanding of Aalto's work from a totally new perspective compared to the classic site visits and books that I have read about him and his work so far.


On Wednesday I visited the Alvar Aalto Museum and participated in the free guided tour on the temporary exhibition: The Housing Problem - Alvar Aalto's Housing Architecture. The exhibition gave an interesting in-sight into Alvar Aalto's approach on housing, discussing both private houses and mansions as well as the housing of factory workers and the latter design of high-rise buildings. Although, I had visited almost all the buildings that had been presented in the exhibition, the guided tour gave me still some new understanding on certain aspects of this buildings and answered some of my questions that had remained open during the visits. What certainly stood out in the exhibition were the many original photos from the time when the buildings were completed as well as several scale models and original furnitures that were on display.

On Thursday I briefly visited the so-called Aalto Lounge that was compiled as a temporary exhibition in the Jyväskylä Art Museum consisting of furniture and other decorative elements designed by Alvar Aalto.








On Friday I participated in one of the guided bus tours which the City of Jyväskylä offered for free. Starting point of the three hours tour called Aalto Bravo was at the City Theater that was, as well, designed by Alvar Aalto. Although there were still plenty of tickets left the day before when I got mine, the bus was quite full when it left.

After viewing a few important Aalto buildings from the bus, such as the Administrative Center of Jyväskylä or the University Main Building, the bus made its way out of town to its first real destination, Säynätsalo. The town on the island is famous for its Town Hall which is regarded as one of Aalto's most important works. I had plans to re-visit this site this summer because the purpose of the building had changed a bit since the city council and administration had moved out of the building. After the building had been standing partially empty for some time an entrepreneur had started to open the building again for the public with a new concept of turning the building into a tourist destination with exhibitions, a bakery-shop and rooms for rent. I was curious to see the changes and happy that the tour stopped for quite a while at the town hall. The guide even showed us around before there was time left to explore the building further on our own. It was nice to be able to access more of the rooms that were formally restricted to the employees in the building only. The Town Hall of Säynätsalo is certainly a masterpiece and it is nice to see that it is now better accessible to the public as well.

After leaving Säynätsalo the tour went on to another site that I had planned to re-visit as well, the Muuramme Church. Since my last visit in 2011, the church had undergone major renovations and the ceiling and the benches had been repainted in the original colors, giving the church a totally different look.

You can still find pictures on my 2011 post in case you want to compare the changes as such. The guide provided us with some interesting in-sights on the church and the renovation it had undergone. The main aim of the renovations was to bring the church as close as possible back to its original state as it was designed by Alvar Aalto. After the visit to Muuramme Church the bus returned directly to Jyväskylä where the tour ended.

One of the highlights of the week was certainly the last day. On Sunday visitors were able to view several apartments in four different Alvar Aalto buildings in Jyväskylä and Säynätsalo. This was certainly an event many local people had been looking forward for long and so did I. The cues at each building were long as everybody wanted to get a climbs of what it must be like to life in an Alvar Aalto building. The first building I visited was the Viitatorni high-rise building.

For years I had dreamed of getting access to this building and one of its apartments. The chairperson of the Alvar Aalto Foundation was kind enough to let visitor to see his own studio apartment that is located in this building. The view from the 11th floor was quite impressive.

The second building open to the public that day was the Aira Apartment House that was originally designed for railroad workers. Here the cue was even longer and some had to wait up to one hour to enter the building. In this building a three room apartment was on display and I was also approached by a journalist who asked me about my opinions on the building. Although my name was not mentioned, my comments were printed the next day in the local newspaper.

Finally, the third building that provided visitors with access was the Alvar Aalto Museum itself. However, this meant not only the regular exhibition space but also the small apartment in the back of the building that was originally designed to accommodate the janitor of the building.

Today, the two room apartment is occupied by the Aalto Foundation and mainly used as office space. The second room, however, is kept as a guest room for visitors of the foundation and shows still many elements of Alvar Aalto's original design.

All in all the Alvar Aalto Week was quite exciting as it provided many interesting in-sights and access to some spaces that I had hoped for quite some years to finally be able to see. I really hope that the organizers will consider to put up similar events also in the future. One could certainly see the large interest among the general public and important role Aalto and his work still plays in this city even decades after his career ended.