Prince Eugen Medal (1954) RIBA Gold Medal (1957) AIA Gold Medal (1963)
Buildings
Paimio Sanatorium Säynätsalo Town Hall Viipuri Library Villa Mairea Baker House Finlandia Hall
Projects
Helsinki City Centre
Design
Savoy Vase Paimio Chair
Signature
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (pronounced[ˈhuːɡoˈɑlʋɑrˈhenrikˈɑːlto]; 3 February 1898 – 11 May 1976) was a Finnish architect and designer.[1] His work includes architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware, as well as sculptures and paintings. He never regarded himself as an artist, seeing painting and sculpture as "branches of the tree whose trunk is architecture."[2] Aalto's early career ran in parallel with the rapid economic growth and industrialization of Finland during the first half of the 20th century. Many of his clients were industrialists, among them the Ahlström-Gullichsen family, who became his patrons.[3] The span of his career, from the 1920s to the 1970s, is reflected in the styles of his work, ranging from Nordic Classicism of the early work, to a rational International Style Modernism during the 1930s to a more organic modernist style from the 1940s onwards.
His architectural work, throughout his entire career, is characterized by a concern for design as Gesamtkunstwerk—a total work of art in which he, together with his first wife Aino Aalto, would design not only the building but the interior surfaces, furniture, lamps, and glassware as well. His furniture designs are considered Scandinavian Modern, an aesthetic reflected in their elegant simplification and concern for materials, especially wood, but also in Aalto's technical innovations, which led him to receiving patents for various manufacturing processes, such as those used to produce bent wood.[4] As a designer he is celebrated as a forerunner of midcentury modernism in design; his invention of bent plywood furniture[5] had a profound impact on the aesthetics of Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson.[6] The Alvar Aalto Museum, designed by Aalto himself, is located in what is regarded as his home city, Jyväskylä.[7]
The entry for him on the Museum of Modern Art website notes his "remarkable synthesis of romantic and pragmatic ideas," adding
His work reflects a deep desire to humanize architecture through an unorthodox handling of form and materials that was both rational and intuitive. Influenced by the so-called International Style modernism (or functionalism, as it was called in Finland) and his acquaintance with leading modernists in Europe, including Swedish architect Erik Gunnar Asplund and many of the artists and architects associated with the Bauhaus, Aalto created designs that had a profound impact on the trajectory of modernism before and after World War II.[8]
^Chilvers 2004, p. 1
^Enckell 1998, p. 32
^Anon 2013
^Boyce 1985, p. 1
^Norwich, John Julius (1990). Oxford Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Arts. US: Oxford University Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-19-869137-2.
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (pronounced [ˈhuːɡo ˈɑlʋɑr ˈhenrik ˈɑːlto]; 3 February 1898 – 11 May 1976) was a Finnish architect and designer. His work includes...
The AlvarAalto Museum is a Finnish museum operating in two cities, Jyväskylä and Helsinki, in two locations each, dedicated to architect and designer...
Radio Observatory in Kirkkonummi. The university is named in honour of AlvarAalto, a prominent Finnish architect, designer and alumnus of the former Helsinki...
The Aalto Vase, also known as the Savoy Vase, is a piece of glassware created by AlvarAalto and his wife Aino that has become an internationally known...
The AlvarAalto Medal was established in 1967 by the Museum of Finnish Architecture, the Finnish Association of Architects (SAFA), and the Finnish Architectural...
the Church of St. Stephen, also known as Detmerode Church Alvar-Aalto-Kulturhaus or AlvarAalto Cultural Centre The most famous professional sports club...
following year switched to working in the office of AlvarAalto. Mandelin married AlvarAalto in 1925. The Aaltos spent their honeymoon in northern Italy. It...
Sanatorium, completed in 1933 and designed by world-renowned architect AlvarAalto. It had both sun-balconies and a rooftop terrace where the patients would...
The Studio Aalto is a house in the Tiilimäki neighbourhood of Munkkiniemi, Helsinki, which AlvarAalto designed during 1955–56 to be the studio of his...
Aalto House, the home of academician AlvarAalto, is located in Munkkiniemi, Helsinki, Finland at 20, Riihitie. The house is part of the AlvarAalto Museum...
1935, is an internationally acclaimed design by the Finnish architect AlvarAalto and one of the major examples of 1920s functionalist architectural design...
The AlvarAalto Cultural Centre (German: Alvar-Aalto-Kulturhaus) is a cultural venue in the city of Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany, designed by the renowned...
the Bauhaus school German architect Walter Gropius, Finnish architect AlvarAalto and Swiss historian-critic Sigfried Giedion, keeping correspondence with...
University of Technology in 1949, and the same year she joined the office of AlvarAalto. They married in 1952, when she was 29 and he was 54, and they had no...
Philadelphia, George Howe and William Lescaze Turun Sanomat, Turku, AlvarAalto The exhibition excluded other contemporary styles that were exploring...
schools in 2011. Much of the university's Otaniemi campus was designed by AlvarAalto. In 1849, TKK was established in Helsinki by the decree of the Russian...
to obtain visas. Later members included Josep Lluís Sert of Spain and AlvarAalto of Finland. No one attended from the United States. A second meeting...
competition for the design of the Viipuri Library in 1927 by Finnish architect AlvarAalto, who regarded Asplund as his mentor. Another important work is the extension...
influence. Even more renowned than Saarinen has been modernist architect AlvarAalto, who is regarded as one of the major figures in the world history of...
Finnish designer AlvarAalto in 1933. Manufactured by Artek, the stool is one of Aalto's most famous furniture designs. In the early 1930s Aalto undertook a...
Estonian-American Louis Kahn, German-American Mies van der Rohe, and Finnish AlvarAalto. In the United Kingdom, brutalism was featured in the design of utilitarian...
Aalto University Undergraduate Center is a building designed by the Architect AlvarAalto. Originally the building was designed to serve as the main building...
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