Alvar Aalto was born in Finland in 1898 .

He graduated with honors from Helsinki Polytechnic in 1921 after which he opened his own practice.

He held the position of Professor of Architecture at MIT 1946 to 1948, and was President of the Academy of Finland 1963-68.

Although his early work borrowed from the neoclassic movement, he eventually adapted the symbolism and functionalism of the Modern Movement to generate his plans and forms.Aalto's mature work embodies a unique functionalist/expressionist and humane style, successfully applied to libraries, civic centers, churches, housing, etc

Architect : Alva AaltoLocation : Jyvaskyla, FinlandDate : 1924 Building Type : mixed use club with theaterConstructi- : stucco exterioron SystemClimate : cold

Context : small cityStyle : Neoclassical presaging Early modern Notes :Box of theater nicely supported by collaonades base.

"This is a typical example of Alvar Aalto's early work in his home town in which he first practiced.

The first substantial commision of Alvar Aalto’s professional career was a rather peculiar little building called tyovaentalo or worker’s club in the city of jyaskyla,in central finland.

Workers club was designed in the spring and was constructed during the summer in 1924

Workers club was originally designed as a club house.

It now houses restaurants and night clubs.

plan

It is a two-storey building situated on the corner of two streets in the centre of the town, and with a café and restaurant on the ground floor.

From the street level one enters an impressive entrance hall that goes upstairs to the auditorium floor comprising a theatre space and foyer.

the basement floor spaces is reserved for, a kitchen, storage ,washing and toilet facilities.

Ground floor plan

First floor plan

Exterior

The exterior is a pared-down,austere white cube with classical references , is a regularized, unornamented, volumetric approach to architecture.

These particular characteristics define the concept of modern architecture.

It was among the few masonry buildings in the small town dominated by wooden buildings.

When designing this building, the young architect Aalto followed the prevailing architectural trend of the time, the Nordic Classicism of the 1920s. The design of the Workers Club theatre was influenced by Italian Renaissance palaces.

section

Palladian window

Palladian balcony

interior

The form language of the Workers Club stems from Italian Renaissance architecture. The colour scheme is typical of Nordic Classicism. A trip of alvar aalto with his wife to Italy in 1924 presumably influenced the design of the interior. The trip was undertaken when the construction was still in progress, and when the couple returned part of the plans for the interior design was changed. As the work progressed, the original plans were simplified, as were the decorative motifs. The Jyväskylä Workers Club was completed in 1925.

The cafe and restaurant in the building have undergone many changes over the years and nothing of the original interior remains. Also the auditorium spaces have over the decades been renewed in accordance with the taste preferences of the time.

. The facades and main entrance of the building were renovated in 1997. In the most recent renovation, completed in March 2008, the entrance hall, foyer and auditorium were returned to a state close to the original. Some of the painted decorations uncovered in the renovation work were restored to their former glory. Also two lamp wall brackets were restored in accordance with older models.

Aalto also designed the lamps for the building as well as the decorative paintings and part of the furniture.

it is this placement of traditional images, endowed with highly specific,localized meanings within an innovative compositional structure ,that becomes evident in the worker’s club and that gives such insight into the character of aalto’s modernity.

Interior entry stairway

Auditorim door

Auditorium foyer

Main features Rennaisance inspired features: collonades,

palladian balcony. Neo-classical façade Light fixtures. This structure reveals the inspiration Italian

landscape and architecture had on the great architect’s work.

Use is made of a circular atrium, a martial canopy with spear like shafts

a Palladian type window, and a large elevation window composition that is at once symmetrical and assymetrical.

As a part of series of unsolicited urban design proposals intended primarily to create more public squares in the city, the site sketches for the workers club proposed to expand the building to the south with a grand, somewhat naïve reflecting pool and flanking loggias.

Aalto's designs were particularly significant because of their response to site, material and form.

Aalto was obsessed with the building not only as an object unto itself, but also as a critical element within his youthful vision of transforming Jyvaskyla into a northern Florence

Perspective view

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