Chapter 2 | Alvar Aalto's Professional NetworksAalto asked what the scientific criteria should be that could serve as standards,
physiological or otherwise, to the internal division of space in a dwelling and the
tectonic choices. Finally, he brought to the fore a number of issues that Gropius had
mentioned in his paper, such as the dramatic change in women’s societal position and
the need of each family member for privacy.^398
Aalto’s article discussing the novel ideas for living ran across seven spreads of
Domus magazine. Typical of the layout style of the time, the illustrations and the
copy did not progress concurrently. Aalto was not in charge of the illustrations for
the article and Domus did not make full use of visual means of communication.^399
Alvar Aalto and Aino Marsio-Aalto’s exhibition department received more column
space in Domus than the others. Finnish colleague Rafael Blomstedt considered Aal-
to’s kitchen organisation more interesting than their other room designs, as it con-
tained all imaginable kitchen machinery. He only regretted that the machines were
not Finnish-made. He also pointed out that small kitchens divided opinion: Some
experts had been scathingly critical of the small kitchen, while some had commended
them for the economical use of space. Blomstedt applauded the pulp paper wallpa-
per, designed by architect Uno Ullberg for Enso Gutzeit, as a durable, easy to paint
and smooth-surfaced material but complained about its strong smell.^400 This sound
absorbing wall paper was later used in the Pamio Sanatorium patient room. The Aal-
tos’ exhibition dwelling had two iron windows and two coupled wooden windows.^401
According to Elina Standertskjöld, Aalto applied ideas that he had adopted at the
Stockholm Exhibition in the Kunsthalle Helsinki exhibition of minimum apartments.
The Aaltos’ exhibition dwelling was a 50–60 square-metre flat, which was approxi-
mately the size of the minimum apartments exhibited at the Frankfurt exhibition.
The minimum apartment exhibition also included a technical display of building
types. In his address in the exhibition publication entitled “Minimum Apartment?”,
Aalto borrowed directly from ideas presented in the Die Wohnung für das Existenz-
minimum conference, while the ideas presented in P.E. Blomstedt’s piece “Old and
New Industrial Art” in the exhibition catalogue were very close to those introduced
by Sven Markelius in the 1928 architecture conference in Turku, Finland.^402
398 Ibidem.
399 The first five spreads of the article “Asuntomme probleemina” (The Dwelling as a Design Problem) contains pictures
of church textiles, photographs of Bryggman’s Parainen Chapel, Teuvo Church following its renovation, the following
five spreads of church art and Bryggman’s Emanuel Church and Hospitals. For a researcher of today, this seems
highly paradoxical. Aalto had specifically stated in his article published on New Year’s Day in 1928 that the church
did not constitute a design task the social substance of which would offer any other choice of expression except the
traditionally artistic one. Ibidem.
400 Blomstedt 1930, p. 191.
401 Drawing No. 93-18. AAM.
402 Standertskjöld 1992a, p. 87.