Chapter 4 | Conclusionslevel of income. In Finland, where the public sector funded the sanatorium, the term
used for the subject was ‘patient’. In the United States, where private hospitals were
common, the term would have been ‘consumer’, in line with the Fordian ethos. Aalto
was conscious of the role of the user of healthcare services, the patient-consumer, and
placed this individual in his design focus. However, the rationalist theory or the mini-
mum apartment did not, as such, emphasise the individual experience.
The architecture of Paimio Sanatorium prioritised the experience of the patient and
mundane, but symbolic actions, such as hand washing. Hand washing was a symbolic ritual
that helped maintain good hygiene. Each patient had their own, large washbasin in the
small patient room. On the one hand, the arrangement protected the privacy and dignity
of the patient, and on the other hand, it also provided isolation to prevent bacteria from
spreading. The patient room was designed around the needs of the patient: they could look
out of the window while resting on the bed, the lighting was designed not to disturb the
patient, and the radiator installed on the ceiling emitted even, comfortable warmth. Aalto’s
architectural office team drew an extensive number of designs for the patient room, such
as the window, the washbasin, the spittoon and the metal frame of the door. Aalto treated
the patient room as a minimum apartment, which from the perspective of the discourse
was a highly relevant concept. He increased its functionality. Examples of this include
the bedside table that could be pivoted over the bed, a reading lamp that could be hung
above the bed or placed on the table, curvilinear wardrobes, splash-free washbasins and the
desk in front of the window, with a curving, heated floor underneath. Aalto repeated this
identical room 120 times throughout the building, but with his unconventional solutions,
he created a sense of individuality to enrich the everyday environment.
In the light of the present study it would appear that, in his design for the patient
room, Aalto was inspired particularly by the problematics of small dwellings. He applied
the new, radical ideas that had emerged in the field of housing construction, which he
became familiar with through CIAM at the time of the Paimio Sanatorium project, to
the design of the patient room. Naturally, the patient room also represented a key room
type in a specialist hospital, but here Aalto’s ambitions were not in any conflict with the
principles of high-standard care. If we take into account that the treatment was mainly
based on regular daily routines, good hygiene, rest, fresh air and nutritious meals, the
patient room had no highly specialised medical functions to fulfil. Therefore, the patient
room in the sanatorium, where patients spent seven months of their lives on average,
and the modernistic minimum dwelling were paradigmatically related. The similarity of
the two space types was manifest in the spatially economical, light-weight furniture, and
their manufacturer, Huonekalu- ja Rakennustyötehdas (Furniture and Building Work
Factory), did in fact market them to private, wealthy and highly educated customers. The
differences were evident in the washbasins and the glass spittoons which both received a
highly tectonic treatment. Huonekalu- ja Rakennustyötehdas marketed the patient room
wardrobe as a suitable choice for private homes and public buildings alike.^995
995 Huonekalu- ja Rakennustyötehdas (1932?) s.a.