My last creative spaces post was about Aalto House, where Finnish architect Alvar Aalto lived from 1935 until 1976 and worked from 1935 until 1956. As promised, this is the follow up post on the space he moved to in 1956, which I was also lucky enough to visit while I was in Helsinki in August of last year.
Alvar Aalto designed the Studio Aalto at Tiilimäki 20 in Munkkiniemi in 1955, seeking more space due to a number of large commissions and some privacy from the adoring students who made pilgrimages from all over the world to meet him. The building is a short walk from his home and arguably one of his best buildings of the 1950s.
The space includes a staff canteen (a 1962-3 addition) with ingenious drawers and cupboards that are accessible from either side. There is an outdoor amphitheatre for lectures and slide shows. He made the most of natural light with high windows illuminating drawing desks and even a light box lit using a sky light. There are vast numbers of drawings – Aalto was known for walking the studio after hours marking up amends to his team’s drawings with a request that they were redrawn in the morning. He kept every draft. He tested out new techniques in this building, so you can see the first example of his signature method of joining bricks around an irregular angle, and the first prototypes for his iconic laminated birch Stool 60.
Alvar Aalto ran the studio until his death in 1976, when his second wife Elissa Aalto took over and remained in charge until 1994. The building came into the custodianship of the Alvar Aalto Foundation in 1984 and today houses the Alvar Aalto Foundation, the Alvar Aalto Academy and the Alvar Aalto Museum of Architectural Heritage. Two desks are kept as they would have been in Aalto’s time – the rest of the space is still a working office, which is a credit to Aalto’s design.
Further reading for the especially geeky:
- creative spaces :: tom raffield
- creative spaces :: sebastian cox
- creative spaces :: rebecca hoyes
- creative spaces :: studio dempsey
Further eye candy for the especially visual:
There are photos of this space and lots more creative spaces on the confessions of a design geek Pinterest page. If you’re not a member yet, click here to join.
