Chapter 2 | Alvar Aalto's Professional Networksand ceiling. The diagrams of the patient room were now depicted in further detail
than the similar diagrams published earlier in Byggmästaren. Only the collage image
describing the principle of the washbasin was the same as the one used a year ear-
lier. Aalto selected the photographs to emphasise the role of the reinforced concrete
structure, the patient room, the transparency, hygienic detailing and the aesthetic
of an industrial environment. The captions were short and factual while the copy
provided a more in-depth explanation of the rationalistic principles adopted in the
design. The article was aimed at architects and the photographs illustrated the theo-
retical underpinning to the design as discussed by Aalto in the article text. Here, the
text and the illustration did not form a communicative tension of opposites, as in Le
Corbusier’s articles.
Aalto recycled the same visuals in the three articles on the main building of Paimio
Sanatorium. In his article of 1932, aimed at his Swedish counterparts, he had included
almost exclusively only drawings. In contrast, the 1933 publication Varsinais-Suomen
tuberkuloosiparantola included mainly photographs. The 1933 article in Arkkitehti (The
Finnish Architectural Journal) had twice as many photographs as drawings. Aalto did
not set up any provocative juxtapositions in these articles; he rather aimed to direct,
through his explanatory texts, how the photographs and diagrams ought to be inter-
preted. It is especially interesting to note the large number of advertisements in the
Varsinais-Suomen tuberkuloosiparantola publication, in which Aalto used targeted adver-
tising as a tactic in a similar way that Le Corbusier had done in the advertisements in
L’Esprit Nouveau (The New Spirit).^492 The diagrams Aalto included in his article in
Byggmästaren of the rounded corner indicate that Aalto used the media space to build
architectural meaning, in a similar manner to Le Corbusier.^493
492 Le Corbusier 1998 [1923, 1924 and 1925]; Colomina 1998 [1994], p. 190.
493 See Colomina 1998 [1994], pp. 104 and 114.