The exhibition presented at the CaixaForum, chronologicaly, exhibits drawings, models, furniture, building materials, sculptures and multimedia material, exhibiting also interesting photographs by Armin Linke on the work of Aalto.
Alvar Aalto came from a cultivated family, his father was a topographer, his mother a teacher and his grandfather an inventor, and he studied at the University of Helsinki. His early influences have an Italian Renaissance line, although authors such as Kenneth Frampton define this period of his life with closer to romanticism and doricism. After going with a scholarship to study in Sweden he was highly influenced by German trends like the Bauhaus.
Throughout his life, Aalto projects over five hundred buildings, most of them in Finland. His work expands over more than one hundred buildings set in eighteen foreign countries. Many of his buildings are works of art projected as a whole (Gesamtkuntwerke), for Aalto designed every detail of the building ñ construction, furniture, lamps, fabrics, etc. and even experimented with building materials. Aaltoís most significat projects include Villa Mairea, Paimio Sanatorium for tuberculosis and the Library of Viipuri (Vyborg) where a magnificent combination of light, materials and organic volumes is made.
Furthermore, the exhibition shows the chairs made of plywood Aalto designed, which have made him one of the most famous furniture designers of the twentieth century. This aspect of his career was developed inside Artek company, which belonged to Alvar Aalto himself with his wife Aino Aalto, the promoter Maire Gullichsen and the art historian Nils-Gustav Hahl as partners.
Aalto understood people as the central element both in its architecture and its art and furniture designs. This is one of the main reasons for his influence in the whole twentieth-century history of architecture. Aalto is considered, along with Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius as one of the great masters of the Modern movement.
Complementary activities to the exhibition.-
Thursday, October 1st, 7:30 p.m.
How did Aalto became famous. Eva-Liisa Pelkonen, associate professor.
Yale University.
Monday, October 5rd, 7:30 p.m.
Landscape, geometry, deck, light.
Enrique Sobejano, architect, founding partner of Nieto Sobejano Architects, professor at the Universität der Künste, Berlin.
Wednesday, October 7th, 7:30 p.m.
New directions in architecture from the Scandinavian point of view.
Samuli Miettinen, Architect, partner and head of design at JKMM Architects, Finland.
Conference fee: 4 €
Limited seats.
