The architecture of Alvar Aalto in five fundamental works

Designed as much as a “medical device” as a building, this sanatorium for tuberculosis patients is immersed in the coniferous forest that characterises the Finnish landscape and organised around treatment rooms and terraces. Every detail was patiently designed by Alvar and his first wife, Aino: pastel colours soften the discomfort, the lights do not dazzle, the water flows silently, and the beds and armchairs direct the gaze towards the landscape. Here, functionalism becomes a form of architectural “empathy”.

The Viipuri Municipal Library marked Aalto’s entrance into the international debate: a rigorous volume conceals surprisingly plastic interiors. In the reading room – a rectilinear homage to the circularity of Erik Gunnar Asplund's Library in Stockholm – the undulating wooden ceiling and circular skylights diffuse a uniform, almost shadowless light; in the large lecture hall, the acoustics are shaped by the space. The severe lexicon of functionalism is bent to a softer, more topographical idea of public space.

Villa Mairea is the most radical manifestation of Aalto's “human-centered modernism”. Commissioned by Maire and Harry Gullichsen – who co-founded the Artek design company with the Aaltos in 1935 – as an experimental home, it intertwines two L-shaped structures that create intimate spaces overlooking the forest. Wood, stone, white plaster and handcrafted details transform the villa into a domestic landscape: the forest-like porch, the irregular swimming pool and the fluid interiors show how the house can be an extension, rather than a negation, of the woods around.

The Aalto house in Munkkiniemi, with its adjoining studio, is a domestic self-portrait of the designers. The 1936 house combines white plastered volumes and wooden surfaces, between modernism and Finnish rural house; the living room and library overlook the garden. Not far away, the Aalto Studio – completed in 1955 – with its amphitheatre-like courtyard and north-facing workroom, reflects the collective design approach that characterised the studio's modus operandi. 

In Riola, in the Apennines near Bologna, a mature Aalto finds a rare testing ground in Italy. The interiors of the Church of Santa Maria Assunta translates the language of Finnish forests into forms of white-painted concrete: the nave is illuminated by a sequence of curved sheds that bring indirect, almost Nordic light into the interior, focusing on the altar. The hall makes liturgy a spatial experience in continuity with the square and the landscape.