FOREWORD
P
aimio Sanatorium (1928–1933) is considered a key work by Alvar Aalto
(1898–1976), who enjoys the unmitigated status of a national hero in Finland.
The inter-war period, and particularly this building has been widely discussed
within architectural research in Finland. Why, then, is it necessary to devote any
further scientific attention to a building about which we already know so much?
Conducting research into a central work by a legendary architect is inevitably
challenging because it is difficult to question the premise of such a work. Alvar Aalto
is regarded as a doyen of form-giving and a master of different scales. Even my alma
mater carries the name of Aalto. While we are well aware of and familiar with the
buildings, chairs and vases he designed, we are far less knowledgeable about his part-
ner networks, motives, doubts or the crossroads at which he found himself, when
there was no obvious solution for bringing the idea to its realisation. I was particularly
interested in the situations, in which he had to use his persuasive skills to convince
other stakeholders involved in the project of the superiority of his solutions. I was
keen to learn, how he operated and what his objectives were. Although there is a
wealth of literature available on Aalto’s oeuvre, so far only one other doctoral thesis
has been completed in Finland on his architecture: Markku Norvasuo’s dissertation
Taivaskattoinen huone (A Room with a Sky Ceiling). During the early stages of writing
the present dissertation, I received valuable encouragement from my then supervisor,
Professor Vilhem Helander, who assured me that even the smallest addition of new
knowledge on and insight into Paimio Sanatorium would be a valuable outcome. I
have naturally availed myself of earlier key research in order to understand how the
building has so far been discussed and what we know of Aalto’s architecture. I find
that Aalto as the mythical hero of Finnish architecture merits critical research based
on primary sources.
I decided to focus on Paimio Sanatorium and so my work gradually evolved into
the present case study. I gained first-hand experience of Aalto’s architecture in my
capacity as the project architect for the restoration of Vyborg City Library in 1997
and 1998, part of the centenary of Aalto’s birth, with funding from the Ministry of
Education and Culture. I had also trained as an architect and worked in buildings
designed by Aalto. When designing the restoration work on the flat roof of the Vyborg
City Library lecture hall wing, I studied Aalto’s eaves structure detailing and came to
understand on a very practical level, how he resolved the application of a new structure
in our specific climate and found an architectural expression for it. Initially, I set out
to compare the technical systems of the Vyborg City Library and Paimio Sanatorium.
I abandoned the comparative element, with the Vyborg City Library and any other of
Aalto’s designs, in the course of my work as my understanding of the nature of technical
systems deepened and my theoretical perspective sharpened: the study of technical sys-
tems matured into the study of technological systems. For the purposes of the present
dissertation, I have approached technological systems as heterogeneous entities shaped