Chapter 3 | The Building of Paimio SanatoriumHelsinki University of Technology.^567 The architect members of the jury were, in other
words, experts in hospital design and rationalist construction methods.
The architectural competition programme listed the buildings to be designed
together with the spatial requirements of the functions to be situated in the main
building and provided guidelines for the grouping of spaces. Furthermore, the com-
petition programme specified separate buildings for the Medical Director’s residence,
Junior Physicians’ and the Administrative Director’s residences, a maintenance build-
ing and a residential building for the staff. The four separate wards in the main building
were to accommodate 184 beds. The rooms were to be designed for either two, three or
four patients, 25 cubic metres of indoor air per patient. Each ward was also to have two
private rooms. The sanatorium building was also to accommodate offices and examina-
tion rooms, spaces on each ward for the use of staff and patients as well as communal
spaces for all patients. In addition, kitchens, rooms for the use of nursing and domestic
staff, communal spaces and equipment, and an isolation ward with its own entrance for
patients with contagious diseases were also to be located in the main building. Each
ward was to have two toilets for the use of patients and one for the nursing staff.^568
Alvar Aalto sent sketches for his competition entry while the competition period
was ongoing to the State Medical Board and received in response eleven knowledgeable
comments on his proposal. The response letter had the pencil marking “E.J. Horelli”,
which would have been added at the receiving end – the letter was not signed, but Aalto
knew it was sent by Senior Medical Officer Edward Johan Horelli, brother of one of the
competition judges. It was suggested in the comments that the patient rooms be made
smaller;^569 the patient corridors widened from 1.8 metres to 2 metres; the window area
of patient rooms halved in size from 8.4 square metres, as not all patients could tolerate
direct sun; the 10 centimetre thick partition walls between patients rooms were diffi-
cult or impossible to sound insulate; wards designed for 42 patients were far too large;
the phototherapy room needed to be more centrally situated; the Junior Physician’s
residence and night nurses’ rooms were not allocated suitable locations; the kitchen
was small; there were not enough cellar spaces; the 240 square metre dining hall was
oversized for 180 patients; the staff dwellings were too small, and it was not suitable
that the toilet door in them opened directly to the living room.^570
It would appear that Aalto did not concern himself with professional ethics
when striving towards success in the competition any more than the Senior Medi-
cal Officer was aware of such rules, as he agreed to respond to the architect. Perhaps
the Senior Medical Officer’s concern that the hospital should become the best it
567 Henttonen 2009, pp. 145–148 and p. 343.
568 [Varsinais-Suomen tuberkuloosiparantolan rakennuslautakunta] (The Building Board for the Tuberculosis Sanato-
rium of Southwest Finland) 1928a.
569 The sketch allocated 30 cubic metres and 9.5 square metres per bed while the State Medical Board considered
that 24 cubic metres and 7.5 square metres would suffice. A letter from the State Medical Board to Alvar Aalto,
January 2, 1929. Correspondence. AAM.
570 Ibidem.