Theme: Office buildings

Alvar Aalto in Helsinki

The maritime Helsinki is the biggest city in Finland and home for several buildings designed by Alvar Aalto. It also contains a wide range of other Finnish architecture from different centuries and decades.

Born in the small rural municipality of Kuortane, Alvar Aalto graduated as an architect in 1921 from the Technical University of Helsinki. In 1923, he established his first office in Jyväskylä, carrying the grandiose name “Arkkitehtuuri-ja monumentaalitaiteen toimisto” (Office of Architectural and Monumental Art). The office first moved to Turku and from there ultimately to Helsinki in the early 1930s.

Earlier in his career, Aalto had participated in several major architectural competitions in Helsinki, such as for the Parliament building and Olympic Stadium.

Designed in tandem with his wife Aino Aalto, also an architect, the family’s home was completed in Munkkiniemi in Helsinki in 1936. At that time, the Munkkiniemi area was not yet officially a part of Helsinki. The Aalto house now serving as a home museum was also designed to have a studio wing for use by the architectural office. Aalto knew the area well: as an example, in the early 1930s he designed a residential area (which never materialised) for the M.G. Stenius company in Munkkiniemi. The housing area designed for the employees of the National Pensions Institute were, in turn, completed in Munkkiniemi in 1954.

A new building was built in 1955 in Munkkiniemi near Aalto’s home to serve the needs of the expanding architectural office. Alvar Aalto’s studio is now the head office of the Alvar Aalto Foundation and a popular attraction among architectural travellers.

Several buildings designed by Alvar Aalto have been erected in the Helsinki region over the years. The head office of the National Pensions Institute and Enso-Gutzeit Co. Headquarters with their interiors were designed with great care down to the minutest detail for the needs of demanding clients. The centre of Helsinki houses buildings open to the public, such as the Rautatalo Office Building and the Academic Bookstore as well as Restaurant Savoy, which has kept its original interior from 1937 designed jointly by Aino and Alvar Aalto.

The House of Culture was completed near the centre of Helsinki in 1958. You can get to explore this building with a rich history and still used for versatile concerts and other cultural events during guided tours.

In 1959, the City Executive Board of Helsinki commissioned Alvar Aalto to draw up a plan for the central Kamppi-Töölönlahti area. Aalto outlined a new monumental centre for Helsinki, but ultimately only a small portion of the plans were brought to fruition – the Finlandia Hall is the only building of the row of cultural buildings planned along the Töölönlahti bay that was ever built.

The Finlandia Hall was designed as a conference and concert venue, and it is one of the last buildings designed by Aalto’s office. The Finlandia Hall was designed in 1967 to 1971 and 1973 to 1975. Alvar Aalto died in 1976, soon after the Finlandia Hall was ready. This building can be visited on guided tours and in conjunction with various events.

Enso-Gutzeit Co. Headquarters

The Enso-Gutzeit Headquarters building was completed in the centre of Helsinki, in a prominent place in the Southern Harbour, in 1962. Now Stora Enso’s Headquarters, the building is one of Aalto’s most controversial works.

Aalto wanted to design a new head-office building to be part of Helsinki’s shoreline silhouette. The white Carrara marble chosen as the surface material links the building with the row of white facades on the North Esplanade. The building has six floors above ground level. The receding top floor creates room for a roof terrace. The building’s main entrance is through a portico.

The furnishings were carefully designed, right down to the smallest detail. Many of the pieces of furniture and light fittings were designed specifically for the building.

Rautatalo Office Building

The Rautatalo Office Building was completed in Helsinki’s city centre in 1955. The building got its name (‘Iron House’) from the federation of Finnish hardware dealers that commissioned it. The main space is the light court, or marble courtyard, that extends from the first floor upwards.

Aalto’s office won the architecture competition for the building in 1951. Progressive in its day, the interior of this office building was meticulously designed, right down to the details.

Shop premises were sited on the lower floors. The office floors are built around a covered marble courtyard. The details of the light court lit by natural light evoke the architecture of the Mediterranean countries.

The Rautatalo is still in use as an office building. The building itself and some of its valuable interiors are protected by the Act on the Protection of Buildings.

Architecture and Turku during the Middle Ages

Travel back in time to medieval Turku and follow the footsteps of the modernist architects Alvar Aalto and Erik Bryggman.

The guided walking tour in Turku introduces you to the masterpieces of modern architecture and other interesting historical sites. After the tour we shall have a delicious lunch. After that the tour continues with medieval history of Turku, by the charter bus of the group. You can learn a lot about the history of Finland along the way.

Architect Alvar Aalto resided in Turku between 1927 and 1933. Turku played a significant role in the emergence of new architecture and furniture design. On this tour a guide will introduce you to the exterior of three transitional works of Aalto’s functionalism: Southwestern Finland Cooperative Building,Office building for Turun Sanomat newspaper and the Standard Apartment House.

Having established his own office here in Turku at the beginning of the 1920’s, Erik Bryggman was one of the earliest representatives of functionalism in Finnish architecture. Among others, the tour presents his Hotel Hospits, Atrium and Student Union buildings.

The attractions on the Medieval bus tour are Turku Cathedral, Turku Castle and the Aboa Vetus Museum. As the National Sanctuary of Finland since the 1300’s, Turku Cathedral is steeped in history. In addition to the cathedral you will discover much about old Turku at Aboa Vetus, where the excavated foundations reveal the medieval lanes of the old quarter and are left exposed for the fascination of visitors. The third destination – 700 year-old Turku Castle – offers much to experience. From the top floor, renaissance banquet halls and the round tower prisoner cells, to the scale models of the castle detailing its historical development through to the present day.