Chapter 3 | The Building of Paimio Sanatorium- Entire sliding glass walls in the treatment of tuberculosis had been used in the
state-of-the-art German sanatoria of the early 1900s.^801
The construction of Paimio Sanatorium took place during a transitional period,
when the manufacturing of wooden windows had already moved to factories and
Finnish companies had begun producing steel windows, which thus far had been
imported.^802 Around 1930, the steel window industry was gaining ground in Fin-
land as Finnish metal workshops started to bring steel frames onto the market. Steel
profiles, however, still continued to be imported from abroad. The local origin of the
steel windows in Paimio Sanatorium was of crucial importance for the developers.
The Turku-based Crichton-Vulcan was, in fact, the only workshop that was invited
to tender for them, unlike several other equally prominent ones that were based in
other towns in Finland. Aalto did not even bother corresponding on the matter of
steel windows with the representatives of Braat window systems, although they had
previously successfully supplied such systems for Aalto’s projects. On the other hand,
steel windows were widely exhibited at various shows, such the 1931 Berlin Building
Exposition, which Aalto attended.^803 Steel windows eventually featured to a much
lesser extent at Paimio Sanatorium than Aalto would have preferred, as they were
more expensive than wooden windows or the hybrid solutions designed by Aalto.
Kaarlo A. Kilpi’s concern for the lack of quality control in the Finnish timber indus-
try would suggest that at least he and the then supervising architect, Ilmari Ahonen,
agreed on the issue. The fact that Kilpi addressed his letter to Ahonen, who represented
the City of Turku, was a way of putting pressure on the contractor. The contractor would
find it impossible to win any contracts from the major customer that the City of Turku
was, should it fail to comply with requirements. In his statement, Kilpi referred to the
quality problem as a general problem concerning the entire Finnish timber industry.^804
He also mentioned that the Finnish timber industry, which did not pay adequate atten-
tion to the quality of its products, had only itself to blame if it lost market share to steel
window manufacturers. The Building Board most likely took notice of this episode and
it may have destabilised their opinion on the superiority of wooden windows.
The discussion on the quality of the construction work, materials and equipment
was topical in general. The Finnish Association of Architects had realised that norma-
tive building standards had become highly necessary. Architects were not familiar with
new building materials and methods, which left them at the mercy of the industry and
contractors.^805 The episode with the Paimio Sanatorium wooden windows shows that
traditional materials also suffered from quality issues in industrial production.
801 Campbell 2005.
802 Prior to the 1930s, steel windows were imported from Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Heikin-
heimo 2002, p. 46.
803 Välikangas 1931, p. 107; Standertskjöld 1992b, p. 92.
804 Kaarlo Kilpi’s statement, June 27, 1931. Documents related to the Paimio Sanatorium project. AAM.
805 A committee appointed in 1930 included Professors Onni Tarjanne, Jussi Paatela and architect Akseli Toivonen as
secretary. The compilation of normative standards. Anon [eds.] 1932c, pp. 17–19.