1.5.4 MODERNISM
The everyday living environment in the completed Paimio Sanatorium was certainly
of a higher standard than most patients were accustomed to in their own homes.
The modernity of the hospital, and how it was experienced by the individuals, was
an important ideological standpoint for the architect: Aalto was aiming to create a
physiological dwelling^260 and was interested in psychologically varied interiors for
patient use. However, this research is not concerned with how the users personally
experienced the new kind of environment. Hence, the research deals with the dialectics
between modernisation and modern architecture, that is, Modernism. Many scholars
have discussed the complexity of the concept of modern architecture and, today, it is
understood as a whole closely linked with wider cultural modernisation. Furthermore,
Modernism is not considered a style.^261 In the present dissertation, the term ‘Modern-
ism’ has been used to denote inter-war period architecture and, in some contexts, to
the Modernism of the period when Paimio Sanatorium was being built. Each instance
shows which denotation was referred. The use of the term “Functionalism” was avoided
except in citations. In Finland, “Functionalism” as a concept is typically associated with
Modernism in the decade before and the one after World War II. Nowadays, attitudes
are critical towards using the concept of “Functionalism”.^262 Aalto did not himself use
the term in relation to Paimio Sanatorium, or his other works in the early 1930s – and
in this sense there is no justification for using it. He used varied terminology during the
building of Paimio Sanatorium, such as “new realism”. However, in 1940, Aalto stated
that the term rationalism is used in connection with modern architecture almost as
often as “Functionalism”.^263 Finnish architects such as P.E. Blomstedt and Aalto, and
their Swedish modernist colleagues, rejected the idea of seeing the new direction as an
architectural style; for them defining a movement as a style was superficial.^264
According to Adrian Forty, the success of architectural metaphors depends on the
difference of phenomena rather than their similarity.^265 Following that science became
the predominant discourse of the 20th century, many architectural metaphors, such as
circulation, mechanical methaphors, both fluid and static, originated from science.^266
He writes: “... The success of the word ‘functional’ relies upon a commonly accepted
agreement that architecture is different from biology and from mathematics. And
furthermore, the scientific metaphors employed in architecture are drawn from such a
260 In his article “Asuntomme probleemina” (The Dwelling as a Design Problem), from the year 1930, Aalto neverthe-
less stressed the physiological needs common to human beings rather than the experience of the individual. Aalto
1930e, pp. 176–189; Schildt 1997a, pp. 76–84; Schildt 1997b, pp. 76–84.
261 Banham 1982 [1962], pp. 9–10; Colqohoun 1994 [1989], pp. 74–75; Heinonen 1986, pp. 4–5 and p. 8; Niskanen
2005, pp. 19–22 and Lahti 2006, p. 31.
262 Heinonen has explained the terms as used in the period under research. Heinonen 1986, pp. 4–9.
263 “The Humanising of Architecture” is an article published in The Technological Review in 1940, and quoted in
Schildt 1997, pp. 102–107. Aalto 1997 [1940].
264 See, e.g., Aalto 1930b, Aalto 1930e, Åhrén 1929 and Blomstedt 1928.
265 Forty 2000, p. 100.
266 Forty 2000, pp. 87–101 passim.