Bauhaus school and who was still able to continue his career despite changes both
in the political climate during the Nazi regime and in postwar West Germany.^286 In
the Soviet Union, Josif Stalin came to power and raised neo-classical architecture
as the new ideal. Through such measures, Germany and the Soviet Union effectively
politicised architectural expressions.
Incidentally, the completion of Paimio Sanatorium coincided with the end of the
era conducive to rationalist architecture in the wider international context. Yet it
must be pointed out that, in the Finnish context, modern architecture was never
associated with political meanings to the degree that was the case in Germany and
the Soviet Union. Modernism was, however, linked with left-wing sympathies even
in Finland, as witnessed by an incident between architect Bertel Jung and Aalto at
the Nordic Building Forum in 1932.^287 Jung had taken a cautiously positive view on
Modernism two years earlier in his comment entitled “Functionalismi” (Function-
alism), published in Arkkitehti (The Finnish Architectural Journal).^288 This would
indicate that Jung’s view on architecture became more politicised during the early
1930s. Jung enjoyed an established position and to mark his 60th birthday in July 1932,
Arkkitehti published a short article praising his life’s work particularly in the field of
town planning, immediately after the episode at the Nordic Building Forum.^289 The
editorial desk at Arkkitehti strived to strike a balance between the traditional and the
modern and to avoid politicising architecture. Therefore, to counterbalance its earlier
support shown for Jung, it published an article on urban development in the Soviet
Union in its next December issue, written by Hans Schmidt,^290 who was Aalto’s
friend and had visited Helsinki in the autumn of 1932.^291 Schmidt was at that time
the Director of the Moscow town planning offices in the Soviet Union.
I have analysed the talks^292 given by CIAM’s two main ideologists, Le Corbusier
and Walter Gropius at CIAM conferences in Frankfurt and Brussels alongside Aalto’s
correspondence with the Sigfried Giedion, the General Secretary of CIAM. Giedion
never gave his own talks at CIAM conferences, but delivered Walter Gropius’ papers,
edited the conference publications and published articles on CIAM’s activities in
many other publications.^293 The talks have been analysed as published in the seminar
286 His book Bauentwurfslehre (Architect’s Data), which for decades became a handbook for architects all over
the world, was first published in Germany in 1936. There is a summary on Neufert’s career in the first pages.
Neufert 1980 [1936].
287 The issue was discussed by the Board of the Finnish Association of Architects and the association’s court of
honour. A reconciliation between the two was mediated by architect Carolus Lindberg. Schildt 1985, pp. 85–88.
288 Jung 1930, p. 59.
289 Brunila 1932, p. 25.
290 Schildt 1985, pp. 87–88.
291 Schmidt 1932, pp. 191–194.
292 Aalto did not hear the talks on the outward journey, and only participated in the meeting on the return trip. I have
assumed that the talks referred to were discussed during the return trip.
293 Giedion’s articles were published at least in the German Bauwelt (The Building Magazine) in addition through
other channels that CIAM regularly used. Giedion also published books other than those related to CIAM’s
activities, including Befreites Wohnen (Freed Dwelling), Giedion 1929, which was published shortly before the
Frankfurt conference.