A
lvar Aalto joined CIAM in 1929. The establishment of the organisation and
its early years coincided with the design and construction of Paimio. CIAM,
and more importantly CIRPAC,^272 CIAM’s preparatory meeting, which had
at least one representative from each member country, opened up a diverse forum for
Aalto to engage in the international discourse at the time when he was working on the
Paimio project. CIAM was an exclusive set; membership could be acquired through
invitation only.^273 Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius^274 were central figures at CIAM
and in Finland they are generally hailed as the forefathers of modern architecture.^275
Gropius gained fame in the Nordic countries as the founder and head of the Bauhaus
art school between 1919 and 1928, and Le Corbusier through his publications and
exhibitions. Furthermore, Gropius and Aalto became good family friends.
Aalto also regarded maintaining good relations with Swedish architects as highly
important from the very beginning of his career.^276 Aalto’s relationship with Sven
Markelius, whom he had met in 1926,^277 grew closer towards the end of the 1920s.
Markelius was appointed in absentia as Sweden’s representative at CIRPAC in June
1928 at the founding meeting of the organisation held at La Sarraz Castle. In Feb-
ruary 1929, CIAM’s Chairman Karl Moser invited Markelius to propose members
from other Nordic countries. It was thanks to his proposal that Aalto was invited
to become a member.^278 Aalto attended two CIAM conferences and at least two
CIRPAC meetings during the Paimio years.^279
272 C.I.R.P.A.C. Comité International pour la Réalisation des Problèmes d’Architecture Contemporaine = Internatio-
naler Ausschuß für Neues Bauen = International Committee for the Resolution of Problems in Contemporary
Architecture. Giedion ed. 1931c, p. 210.
273 Le Corbusier, 1964a [1933], p. 187.
274 Walter Gropius (1883–1969) was an ideologist, a strategist, a designing architect and an educator. It is exception-
ally true of Gropius to say that his thinking found true expression through interacting with people, in his architec-
ture and in his writing, and he set great store by cooperation. Research and methodology were also of central
importance to his work. Gropius served as the director of Bauhaus between 1919 and 1929 in Weimar and Dessau,
after which he dedicated his time to housing design and, for example, CIAM.
275 Järventaus 1967, p. 433.
276 Aalto had made his first trip to Sweden in 1920 while still a student. His visits to Sweden became increasingly
frequent and the trip from Turku was even shorter than from Helsinki or Jyväskylä. His friends Gunnar Asplund
and Sven Markelius introduced Aalto around 1926 to a circle of architects who were interested in social and
technological questions in architecture and were aiming to change Sweden into a welfare state. They also had
direct contacts with Bauhaus, the Dutch De Stilj group and Le Corbusier in France. Schildt 1997a, p. 58 and Schildt
1997b, p. 58; Eva Rudberg has also described each individual relationship Aalto had with his Swedish colleagues
in a book Alvar Aalto i Sverige (Alvar Aalto in Sweden). Rudberg 2005.
277 Heporauta 1999, p. 15.
278 Göran Schildt described the process of Aalto gaining membership in CIAM following a suggestion by Markelius. In
addition to Aalto, Markelius also proposed membership for the Danish designer Poul Henningsen. Schildt
1985, p. 60; See also Rudberg 1989a, p. 50.
279 Aalto attended a meeting in Frankfurt am Main on September 25, 1930, preparing for the 1930 Brussels confer-
ence. Heinonen 1978, p. 241; He also included a visit to Zurich in the trip. Alvar Aalto’s letter to Giedion, November
9, 1930. AAM; Aalto attended the “special congress” in Berlin in June 1931. Schildt 1985, p. 71.