GOLDEN FLEECE II

The Aalto Archive houses 110,000 drawings and images. That is a huge collection and represents a prolific output.

For the Villa Mairea project alone there are over 900 drawings that represent intense speculations upon a single project. Here is an object lesson for all students of architecture (at what ever age - or career point); the building is not designed 'because I have drawn it'-that drawing is the first of many within a dense, iterative and speculative journey of exploring opportunities and potentials.

The curatorial team have been cataloguing and scanning for 11 years and to date 65% of the work is scanned and archived. 

KAMPII CHAPEL

When I first read of the project I was intrigued. It was reported as a space for contemplation, meditation and prayer for those of all faiths and none. More detailed research led me to understand that the project was jointly funded, by the Commune, and the Church.

Whilst I admire and celebrate the ambition, the beautiful (non-prescriptive) fluid form is compromised by the linear (Christian) Aisle and in my humble opinion fatally compromised by the presence of the symbolism of Christian liturgy.

When will faith systems be courageous enough to discard factional semiotics for the greater good?
If I imagine myself as a man of Islam, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Jain, or indeed simply as a man without a God what would I make of this? Where is the common ground?

A lost opportunity, within a sublimely beautiful space.

THE GOLDEN FLEECE

Thank God I have not had the capacity to get excited squeezed out of me! 

Yesterday, I had the enormous privilege of visiting the Aalto archive, meeting the kind and generous spirit archivist Timo Riekko. I had the opportunity to talk with Timo regarding my research objectives and viewed literally thousands of images that included sketches, travel sketches, drawings and photographs, focused upon the Aalto House, the Aalto Studio and Villa Mairea.

What an experience!

I have now on my hard-drive over three hundred of those images that I cannot share publicly for reasons of copyright, as is entirely appropriate.

I can however promise anyone who seeks an object lesson in process, intensity, looseness, over-drawing, under-drawing, drawing vaguely, drawing precisely, drawing for different audiences, drawing for self; a ‘show and tell’. 

The image below is my own photograph taken in the Town Hall (in the public domain) but may give a hint.......

YOU KNOW YOU HAVE MADE IT WHEN......

Your neighbors impersonate you (poorly)

A Pizza Restaurant takes you name (in vain).

MEETING THE GROUND

One interesting dimension of Aalto's work that is unfolding on this trip, is how his design responses developed over time, moving from a robust form of neo-classicism through a period International Modernism through to what we might term ‘Nordic Humane Modernism, rooted in place.

However, such development also exhibit consistency of concern, and one consistency is how the building meets the ground.

In the Workers Club (1924), the ‘piano rustica’ mediates between building and street; a significant element to the south of the Eastern façade, fusing with the ground plane at the Western edge of the Northern façade.

At the Town Hall (1949-1952), the granite plinth is staggered, moving subtlely against the landscape and with the building. In places plinth becomes ground.

In the Aalto Museum (1971-1973), the plinth speaks to the snow, articulating the cill position of opening and rearing up over the entrance door, in layered materiality.

Perhaps in all architects their beginnings resonate throughout the work over time. In Aalto’s case revealed with increasing subtlety, dexterity and articulation.

And then onto Kuokkhalan and a beautiful Church Project (2010) by Anssi Lassilia, Teemu Hirvilammi and Jani Jansson. This needs no words....let the images speak.

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing what can happen when you release primary and secondary structure from each other.

Tomorrow - the golden fleece. The Aalto archive.  

 

COINCIDENCE, SERENDIPITY AND KINDNESS

Today was somewhat of an Aalto summit on the Finnish leg of the pilgrimage; Saynetsalo Town Hall. A building I regard as an exemplar. where ideas and making come together in a manner that is sublime, and all those little hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention and all breath is inward.

But I get ahead of myself. 

Many years ago (when Woolly Mammoths were commonplace in the vast forests of Portsmouth) and I joined the School of Architecture, I was billeted with my erstwhile tutor Dr. Richard Bunt (the Governor). On his office door was the sign; 'Ministry of Coincidences', bestowed by an errant group of students who detected a propensity for coincidence to occur within that space when conversations unraveled. As they did. Often.

Upon taking up my desk within this hallowed hall Dick immediately (and somewhat undemocratically) appointed me ‘Under Secretary of State for Serendipity’ – a role I undertook with some gusto, in my (then) (relatively) youthful naivety.

Today, that early immersion in being open to coincidence stood me in good stead.

I did of course ‘research opening hours, routes of passage etc', but upon arrival at the Town Hall was somewhat alarmed to find it locked. Indeed, the sign (in two languages taped inside the front door) informed me that the entire Town Hall population had migrated to another place and that visits were only possible with one week (minimum) advance notice. Breath this time left my body for all the wrong reasons.

I had visited before and so resigned myself to an external examination of this special place. Off I plodded rather disconsolately. Circumnavigating slowly, a pickup truck arrived, a man hopped out bearing on his uniform those immortal words ‘facilities management’ which even with my limited knowledge of Finnish somewhat inappropriately excited me. As he walked towards the Town Hall I gave him my best ‘Hei Hei’ and pursued him before he could unlock. 

I explained in my best Finnlish that I was an elderly Professor of Architecture who had taken a wrong turn on my way to a Sewage Conference (Dick will get that) and was it at all possible to enter the building? I showed him by business card that seemed to convince him that I was indeed genuinely a lost sole with an interest in Aalto. It transpired he was there to fix the library lights. 

He invited me into the library, and the to my astonishment proceeded to give a private tour of the whole building opening every door, exploring each nook and cranny (of which there are many) and exhibiting saintly patience towards the Englishman who for some reason seemed obsessed with photographing door handles, lights, space and waxing lyrical constantly.

Dick, you taught me well. Trespass. Be awake to serendipitous moments and when they occur, dive on them.
 

 

It's an essay in democracy

In light, material and texture

In form, ritual and landscape
 

In the acts of architecture
 

In detail and materiality

In meaning and symbolism - the public sit above their representatives bathed in the light (of collective wisdom)
 

The public are behind the representatives watching and listening....
 

Tactility and humanity at every scale.....

Tectonic articulation
 

In material use
 

  

So thank you Dick for all those lessons well learned and my thanks to my new Finnish friend and the God of 'Facilties Management'.      Never thought I would say that.                                                                                

                                                       

                                                                                                                         

Thought for the day?

'The only proper goal of architecture is build naturally. Don't overdo it. Don't do anything without good reason. Everything superfluous turns ugly in time.'
(Alvar Aalto 1925)

 

LIGHT....AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT

The sun returned today lighting and shadowing Aalto's finest. Revisited the Worker's Club and then onto the University Campus.

And so the the pool, constructed in three phases:

Light and moving water - a wonderful combination.....



And next to the Physical Sciences Building:

Back to the Museums.....

  

And then to where it all came from....