Alvar Aalto and Aino Marsio-Aalto visited the interior of Villa Jeanneret-Raaf (1923–
- and saw Villa La Roche from the outside.^333 Aino Marsio-Aalto took photographs
of Villa Stein De Monzie (1927–1928), which they also visited.^334 In Paris, the Aaltos
met Le Corbusier.^335 Aalto also saw Lurçat’s sketches of a hotel he had designed for the
Mediterranean coast, and its asymmetrical windows made such an impression on Aalto
that he reiterated the idea in his competition entry for Paimio Sanatorium.^336
Renja Suominen-Kokkonen has emphasised the influence of the trip to Paris and
Le Corbusier’s work on the design of Turun Sanomat Newspaper Building.^337 The
master drawings of the Turku project were completed in October 1928 immediately
after the trip, but the building permit was issued only in late April 1929. Since the
building was technically extremely modern, it may be assumed that the authorities
required structural calculations before granting the permit. These calculations are not,
however, housed in the city archives.^338
The 700th Anniversary Exhibition of the City of Turku, designed jointly by Alvar
Aalto and Erik Bryggman, was open to the public in 1929 for one week only.^339 Other
Turku projects were completed in rapid succession and Aalto presented the Southwest
Finland Agricultural Cooperative and the Standard Apartment Building as well as the
Turku 700th Anniversary Exhibition design in Arkkitehti (The Finnish Architectural
Journal) in summer 1929.^340
Aalto expressed regret in the project description for the Southwest Finland Agricul-
tural Cooperative Building that the internal “heterogeneity” impeded his design work,
as the theatre hall was also to be used as a conference space. The dilemma troubled the
architect, as he could not clearly define the design problem. Aalto recounted that he
designed the interiors only for some of the spaces. He introduced his team,^341 the most
important contractors and the building material manufacturers,^342 but left, for example,
the structural engineer Emil Henriksson uncredited. Henriksson had drawn up the
structural design for the Agricultural Cooperative in July–December 1927, partly over-
lapping with the design of the master drawings.^343 Aalto reported having used as many
standard parts in the interior as possible and having designed a few standard pieces in
the course of the work, including the letter and advertisement system, the lit concrete
333 Suominen–Kokkonen 2007, pp. 70–71.
334 See e.g. Schildt 1985, pp. 57.
335 Suominen-Kokkonen 2007, p. 63.
336 Cohen 1995, pp. 112–113; Schildt 1986, p. 57.
337 Suominen-Kokkonen 2007, p. 63.
338 Building permit documents. Archive reference VI-4-4. TKA.
339 The exhibition was open June 15–23, 1929. Soiri-Snellman 2010, pp. 66–67.
340 See Aalto 1929a, Aalto 1929d and Aalto 1929c.
341 At Aalto’s office, the design work was contributed to Aino Marsio-Aalto, Harald Wildhagen, Erling Bjertnæs, Kerttu
Tamminen, Erkki Beckström and Totti Strömberg. Aalto 1929a, pp. 83–88.
342 The main contractor was Juho Tapani and the site supervisor was master builder Axel Löfström. The windows and
doors were made of the Dutch Crittal-Braat steel profiles with bronze fittings and with partly single, partly double
glazing. The buildings were installed with light fittings by Poul Henningsen as well as by light fittings from the Taito,
Kaune and Koristamo factories. The restaurant interiors were partly manufactured by Huonekalu- ja Puutyötehdas
in Turku. Aalto 1929a, pp. 83–88.
343 Building permit documents for the Southwest Finland Agricultural Cooperative. Archive Reference VII-20-4. TKA.