THOSE BEAUTIFUL BLUE MOUNTAINS AND HILLS


In his works Aalto tried to solve problems that northern climate and polar light pose to ar-chitecture. In reindeer antler plan of Rovaniemi Aalto emphasised the natural conditions - the wide river and hilly landscape - and their meaning in regional planning. He did not wish to compete with nature designing high buildings.

Kirjaston ikkunaAlvar Aalto is known of his abstract architecture. Why did he then hide an image of rein-deer in Rovaniemi town plan or brought mountain scenery in the middle of the town with Lappia hall's roof lines?

Probably the most influential of the nordic natural phenomena for Aalto are the polar lights - Aurora Borealis. Their forms may contain one of the sources of Aalto's organic, ever revolving line. In the New York world fair people saw for the first time a gigantic wall of po-lar lights that could not have been born without strong personal experience. That can only be experienced in Lapland.



Lappia-talo

"Architecture and its details are in some ways a part of biology. Perhaps they both remind for example a big salmon. They are not born mature, they are not even born in the same waters they normally live in. They are born hundrets of miles away from their habitat, where rivers narrow down to brooks, between fells in small ponds under the first drops that melt from galsiers, as far from their normal life as peoples emotions and instincts are from our everyday work."
Alvar Aalto, 1947




Aalto in Lapland | Architecture in Rovaniemi | Elsewhere in Lapland | Lapland in Aalto| Read More
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