2. 1 Aalto’s Literary Output
A
alto was a prolific writer even before CIAM’s mandate. The articles of his that
were included in the present study were selected based on their publication date
and information content. In each of the selected articles, Aalto discussed the
interface between architecture and technology from a different angle. Some of the articles
have helped form a picture of his career and ideas in the years of the Paimio project. The
project presentations published in Arkkitehti (The Finnish Architectural Journal) that he
himself wrote, introducing all his designs from his Turku period were also included in this
study. The volume Alvar Aalto in his Own Words, edited by Göran Schildt, and more spe-
cifically the articles he selected for the chapter “The Rationalist Utopia”, have served as a
key guide in the the selection of relevant articles for closer study.^296 The original texts have
also been used and referred to as sources. The first of the articles, “Uusimmista virtauksista
rakennustaiteen alalla” (The Latest Trends in Architecture) was published on New Year’s
Day 1928, in a Turku newspaper Uusi Aura (The New Dawn). In the present study, this
article represented Aalto’s career in the period before his CIAM memberships and is phil-
osophical in its approach. The second article, “Asuntomme probleemina” (The Dwelling as
a Design Problem),^297 which was published in 1930 in Domus magazine, was thematically
linked with the 1929 CIAM conference Die Wohnung für das Existenzminimum (The
Dwelling for Minimum Existence), the 1930 exhibition in Stockholm and the Minimum
Apartment Exhibition curated by Alvar Aalto and Aino Marsio-Aalto in Helsinki in 1930.
The focus of the article was on the home and the central theme was standardisation. In
1932, Sven Markelius invited Aalto to write an article for a special Arkitektur och samhälle
(Architecture and Society) issue of the Spektrum magazine, which he edited together with
Uno Åhrén. Aalto’s article “Bostadsfrågans geografi” (The Geography of the Housing
Problem) discussed technological systems in the context of town planning. The project
descriptions on Paimio Sanatorium published in Byggmästaren (The Master Builder), Ark-
kitehti and the publication Varsinais-Suomen tuberkuloosiparantola (Southwestern Finland
Tuberculosis Sanatorium) revealed how the architect wished to present the building to his
peers. Observations on the evolution of Aalto’s thought processes, the ideas expressed by
the writings and the way their writer justified these ideas, were made. The concepts he used
were focused, and how he considered them in relation to the conference talks given by Le
Corbusier and Gropius. A further point of interest were the communicative strategies that
Aalto employed in the three articles on Paimio Sanatorium, which were studied by ana-
lysing the target audience, illustrations and the combined impact of the imagery and text.
296 Schildt wrote an introduction to each chapter as well as individual article, shedding light on his own reading of the
texts. The introductions debate, among other things, at whom the articles were targeted. Schildt also provided
valuable insight into Aalto’s exceptional methods: he might, for example, use the format of an interview in which
he wrote both the questions and the answers. Schildt 1997a, p. 58, and Schildt 1997b, p. 58.
297 In my opinion, Schildt’s translation, (The Housing Problem), of the original title “Asuntomme probleemina” is not
accurate, as the article focuses on only a single apartment and its design. I have translated it as “The Dwelling as
a Design Problem”.