Lapinkävijät - Alvar Aalto Lapissa

KARELIAN BUILDING HERITAGE

Kemijärvi Church

Atri Ltd.

Pirttikoski

Kemi Civil Guard Building

Regional Plan for Lapland

"In Karelian free roof forms where there is also firm precision, we see connection to nature that has remained fresh. It is a kind of a life battle that has been able to create necessary, live and flexible forms for itself."

Aalto, 1941

BUILDINGS FOR ATRI LTD.
Sirkka in Kittilä 1943-46

Atri Ltd. purchased a piece of land in the village of Sirkka in Kittilä where it had taken an interest in prospecting. An office building, a club house, sauna and a laundry house as well as two houses for the engineers, two houses for the supervisors, two barracks and a ga-rage was built in the area according to Aalto's plans. Managers accommodation was car-ried out by the bank of lake Immeljärvi.

The houses for the engineers and supervisors as well as the garage and the shed have survived to our days. The timbered sauna has been removed to Levi's downhill skiing cen-tre.

hirsirakenteita Aalto's northernmost buildings, as far as we know, were born in Sirkka. Cold climate does not show in the exterior features of all Atri's houses owing to the intended temporariness of the buildings and standardisation. The prefabricated element houses were simple accord-ing to the style of that time, whereas timbered houses reflected the spirit of Karelianism, the Finnish national romantic style.