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Front to Rear: Architecture and Planning during World War II, March 7-8, 2009 >
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2451/30289
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| Title: | Alvar Aalto: Planning Finland, c. 1940 |
| Authors: | Pelkonen, Eeva-Liisa |
| Keywords: | architecture
World War II
urban planning
Aalto, Alvar
Finno-Russian War |
| Issue Date: | 23-Sep-2011 |
| Abstract: | My paper will deal with Alvar Aalto's planning ideas during the two
Finno-Russian Wars between 1939-40 and 1941-44, during which he spent
prolonged periods in the U.S. and became exposed to American
regionalism. I will focus on a seminal year 1940 when Aalto was most
actively pursuing different planning ideas during and in the aftermath
of the Winter War. I will discuss a series of articles and projects
which demonstrate the various ways he started to apply regionalist
planning principles to the Finnish war-time context. His article
'Finland' written for the Architectural Forum in 1940 maps out the
foundation of Finnish modernism on the lines of American regionalism and
puts forth his plan for reconstruction. The proposal 'American Town in
Finland' executed while Aalto held a research professorship at MIT was a
first attempt to put regionalist principles to use. A little brochure
entitled 'Post-War Reconstruction: Rehousing Research in Finland',
published through the Finnish Consulate in New York for American
distribution in 1940, puts forward the idea of 'flexible
standardization,' which allowed architecture to absorb various
contingencies from site conditions to programmatic needs. Aalto's first
large scale planning project, the Kokemäki River Valley Regional
Plan (1940), both commissioned by Finnish industry, both encompassed new
settlements, infrastructure, production, and recreational facilities and
used planning as a means to regulate the spatial relationships between
these functions. I will point out how the Second World War offers a
backdrop, even an answer, to Aalto's activities at that time. The
'Finland' article was aimed at convincing his American audience--a
potential source of humanitarian aid--that the Finns had nothing to do
with the (putatively) Communist-infested international modern movement
nor nationalism that fuelled the Second World War. My paper will thus
expose the audience to little-known aspects of Aalto's activities and
persona, namely that he was very well versed in statecraft and saw his
writings and architecture as a means to promote and even act out various
geographical scripts. His geographic narratives produced terminology,
representations, and spatial products whose goal was to understand and
reinforce national culture, on the one hand, and conceptualize
relationships to other countries, on the other. The spatial idea behind
regionalism was a nested network, in which the country's internal
infrastructural, settlement, and production networks are supported by
and connected to the larger global networks of international commerce.
On the whole exposure to regionalism helped him to overcome the
nationalist and internationalist ideologies that had fuelled much of the
architecture culture of the early part of the 20th century and take a
pragmatist approach to geographic questions emphasizing management of
economic, human, and natural resources during the period of post-war
Finnish reconstruction, which eventually laid the foundation for the
future economic prosperity of the country. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/30289 |
| Appears in Collections: | Front to Rear: Architecture and Planning during World War II, March 7-8, 2009
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