Chapter 3 | The Building of Paimio Sanatoriumwindow was informed by the hygienic considerations pointed out by medical advisors.
The coved ceiling joint and rounded skirting board create an impression of a hygienic
room. The lavatories in the Paimio Sanatorium lobby still have coved corners, which
were probably also used in patient rooms as well. The washbasin pipes were placed in
a separate riser within the wall and their rounded, clean shape would appear to be free
of nooks and crannies in which dirt could build up. The wardrobes were not recessed
into the wall, and their rounded profile gave the impression of a continuing wall surface.
When taking a closer look at the patient room, the entity comes across as a most
harmonious one: all furnishings were the outcome of holistic thinking, and the tech-
nological solutions were implemented with great economy of space while optimising
their functionality. However, this harmonious image tells nothing of the process that
preceded the end result.^907 It might appear that Aalto was commissioned to create the
interior design for the patient room, including all its parts. As the present study shows,
this was not the case. The furnishings were divided into four categories, only some of
which were part of the design remit of Aalto’s office. From the Building Board’s per-
spective, it was not a question of commissioning an artistically coherent whole. Aalto as
a designer was, however, keen to realise the patient room according to his own visions,
including the tiniest of details. This required a great deal of effort from the architect, or
the innovator. By manoeuvring the purchasing processes through various trials he was
able to translate the view of the Building Board to support his own intentions by always
invoking the lowest price. He exercised a great deal of power within the project. As the
person responsible for composing the acquisition programme, he knew the rules, and,
as a representative of the client organisation, it was part of his role to invite tenders. In
addition to this position and the resources of his architectural office, he also formed part
of many local collaborative networks, which had taken shape in the course of previous
projects. Therefore, the manufacturing of the model wardrobes for the patient room at
Huonekalu- ja Rakennustyötehdas (Furniture and Building Work Factory) was com-
pleted in record time. Aalto showed great creativity in exploiting his social and material
resources. He had managed to bring into existence a strong, viable hybrid made up of
social and material actants, existing only for the purpose of the project. The way Aalto
developed his standards, mostly for the patient room, can be seen as a method similar
to Latour’s laboratory, where a question is isolated from the surrounding reality and
resolved in a laboratory or on a drawing board, and then introduced to the wider world
or taken into industrial production^908
907 Latour and Yaneva 2008, pp. 80–89.
908 Latour 1999 [1982], pp. 141–170, especially p 167.