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8/10/2019 gsh shh sdghdj

1/10

Friday, June 11, 2010

Day 10 - Architectural Adventures Continue

I made a small error in my last post when I said we visited four

Aalto buildings this day. We only saw two Aalto buildings. The

second building we saw on ouroutings, a church, was ac tually a

spontaneous encounter. The church, Kristuskyrkan ("Christ's

Church" in Finnish), was designed by Atte V. Willberg, a name

unknown to me until that building. Kristuskyrkan was completed in

1928 and is located in the Tl region of Helsinki. The front of

the church was difficult for meto catch in a single photograph, sothe following is a grab from Wikipedia:

I'm tempted to call Kristuskyrkan a pocket church, but the interior

is surprisingly spacious. It also contains some nice detail and

fixtures, such as this lighting piece.

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Day 11 - Aalto, Aalto and, oh more

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Day 10 - Architectural Adventures

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Cat Adams

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A multimedia, multicultural architectural adventure!
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2/10

Scandinavian architecture is full of unique lighting fixtures and

arrangements. Aalto pushed the limits of lighting design to the

max, for his time. You'll see more of this later on in this post when

I talk about Finlandia Hall.

On either side of the church's nave, I found some curiously middle

eastern influences in the arch form. The succession of scalloped

arches is commonly found in mosques in the Middle East, but not

in western Europe and certainly not in the United States.

I was unable to find any more information about the architect (in

Finnish or otherwise) so I can't say for sure if he gleaned this

detail from some travels to Istanbul or similar.

Now, a personal confession. Although I'm certainly not a religious

person, I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to church interiors, and

there are certain things I look for because I feel rather informed

on the matter. It's hard not to when you spend four mornings a

week for nearly four years sitting in front of this:
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3/10

The only downside to spending so much time in such an awe-

inspiring place is that you become desensitized to it. Now that it's

been four (gasp) years since I graduated high school, I've relaxed

into a comfortably informed appreciation of church architecture.

As you have guessed, I'm particularly fond of wood carving, so I

was happy to see this on the altar at Kristuskyrkan:

It's simple but worthy of some consideration. The wood is polished

to a gleam, smooth as silk and there's some nice detailing in the

folds of the fabrics. The candles in the image are about as tall as

my hand, for reference, so it's a decent sized work.

Alright, it's time to move on to the things we were actually

supposed to go see. The next stop was the National Museum of

Finland, designed by Eliel Saarinen and c ompleted in 1904. The

building looks more like a re-purposed castle than an originally

designed museum.
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4/10

There's no end to the curiosities in this building, and we didn't

even go inside! Saarinen does some odd things with materials in

the facade, which I tried to work out in drawing, but the drawing

needs revision so you get photographs.
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5/10

The sheer amount of stone detailing is dizzying and delightful at

the same time. The entrance to the museum is surrounded by

stone carving of animals and symbols whose meanings elude me

but fascinate me nonetheless.
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6/10

Done before the days of CNC milling, by hand, to perfection.

We moved quickly on to the next building, located conveniently

across the street. The second and final Aalto building of the day:

Finlandia Hall!

Finlandia Hall is easily one of Aalto's most defining buildings. I

believe this has much to do with how the building looks, since its

facade is entirely white marble, instead of his usual red brick.
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7/10

Finlandia Hall was originally designed as a concert hall, but in

recent years has shifted to hosting more conferences and

conventions. The interior is a bit more conventional for Aalto in

terms of materials. He's very fond of this semi-cylindrical tile,

which he uses in many of his buildings, in a variety of colors. The

tiles are available for purchase at some of his buildings, for a

heavy price, of course.

The tile has more depth than this image gives it credit for. You

can almost grip the tile on the wall, if it weren't for the mortar in

between. If you look at the column in the foreground, the cream

tile reveals more of the shadow which evidences the depth of the

physical tile.

This is the lobby and coat-check area. The ceiling is surprisingly

low, which is meant to focus the viewer's gaze and attention to

the glass wall behind me that looks out on... well, a parking lot.But beyond the parking lot (which was not part of the original

design but proved cheaper than the public transit system and

underground parking lot) is a park and then a bit of the Helsinki

skyline.

Can you tell where I had issues with this pano? A wide flight of
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8/10

stairs leads you from the lobby to the main waiting area which ties

all of the performance spaces together. Our tour guide (she's the

left most person wearing the teal jacket in the distance) informed

us that Aalto, by making the waiting area such a large, open

space, had a significant impact on Finnish social culture. Finns are

naturally reclusive, introverted people and not used to making

small talk. ("Finnish small talk is the smallest of all," quipped the

guide.) Aalto's large, open space deprived concert-going Finns of

any real place to hide and thus coaxed many out of their shells, at

least when they were in his building.

Aalto gave them plenty to talk about when it came to light

fixtures. I mentioned earlier that I would be getting to them, so

here's a quick dive into the vast collection of Aalto lighting.
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9/10

At first, the fixtures look completely different, but little similarities

begin to emerge. For example, the shape of the first two lights.

Also, the use of wooden dowels in the first and third lights. No two

Aalto lights entirely different from one another, but his work is

unique in and of itself, and can only be attributed to the man

himself.

Here's a proverbial shot of the interior of the main concert hall,

only because I feel obliged to. I don't know enough about

acoustics to full appreciate the sound quality, and authorities on

the subject have mixed feelings about Finlandia.

That concludes Day 10. More Aalto and Saarinen to come! I'll be

sure to give some more info about Saarinen, since I merely

mentioned his name, and his relationship with Finland is a tricky

one.

Posted by Cat Adams at 5:48 AM

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