re: work in finland - aalto's legacy?

[ricardo1979]

Hi

I guess I am just another of many people interested in Finnish architecture and architecture in Finland.

The whole debate about getting work in Finland is rather depressing.

When I moved to Brisbane (Australia) I was offered several interviews in the same week and could have taken any job. The pay here is better than anywhere else in Australia. The experience I've got since graduating is phenomenal.

Finland sounds the opposite! So few people or development and a closed door to foreigners who can't speak Finnish, so it seems.

So what is it that draws architects to Finland? Do the Finns have a completely unique attitude towards design? Is it the prestige that one would have, having worked in the same country that Aalto worked in?! In an increasingly globalised marketplace where projects are designed internationally, is there a great advantage in say working in Finland as opposed to Norway or Denmark?

[t.madison]

Unfortunately, Finland's architecture is in its past although there are good people in the present. You hit the nail on the head with internationalism. Today, you can't think like a Finn and expect to be recognized elsewhere. Aalto, as an example, was only really recognized after his death. That does not do much for the present.

[Hank W.]

Do the Finns have a completely unique attitude towards design?

Yes, placing toilet tiles on the outside of the building...

I could take some pictures of any village, say the likes of Klaukkala where I go almost daily, and the finest architechture is Lidl...

[RSH]

Hi

Finland sounds the opposite! So few people or development and a closed door to foreigners who can't speak Finnish, so it seems.

Did you get your job offers in Australia without being able to speak any English?!

I can't think of another "big name" architect since Alto, and as said above he was recognised after his death. I think as well (personal opinon) he was celebrated because of his time, after a period of war / occupation in Finland and a need in some towns to redesign, rebuild and give places a sense of Finnish identity. Would he be so celebrated if he came about at another period of time?

I am not an architect but have friends who are or are into style / design. They have felt more motivated and inspired in Sweden and Denmark than here. They note the functionality of Alto's designs, particularly for their time and roles, but that's it.

I guess it depends, are you coming to seek inspiration, in which case why not do a Nordic Scandic tour or are you coming to further your CV in which case the chances are unfortunately slim. This is not (just) because Finland looks down on foreigners, closed doors, is not international but is a simple reality: you don't speak Finnish, how will you communicate with your clients?

Good luck

[Hank W.]

Or: You come from Australia - people might have a prejudice you don't know how to design in a climate a meter of snow is the bigger concern than having a nice shade, or small stuff like insulated plumbing and heating expenses and... Even the Finnish architects/builders seem to have forgotten the "meter of snow + flat roof" equation considering the latest mall roof cave-ins last winter.

[Xochiquetzal]

I've had the same discussion with several architects in Finland. From what I've been told, the architecture program at the universities is one of the most heavily impacted - and the one with the smallest chance for an actual job after graduation. Typically, most architecture majors in Finland either end up doing interior design or working for the large construction companies doing misc work like soil planning or putki remontti. Few actually get to design buildings or houses. And those that do, are forced to use type plans (industrial or residential) mandated by the builder or the owner.

My daughter's day care keeper is the wife of an architect who apprenticed in Aalto's studio in the 1950s (and she worked for Marimekko at the same time - what a pair!). She had some choice comments about the man and his architecture. It seems that the glow of Aalto's popularity (which translates as 'he's a Finn and brought world recognition of Finland so he will be revered') has begun to fade in direct proportion to the effectiveness of his architecture. What seemed experimental and avant garde in the past now seems misguided and short sighted. The bloom is off the rose for Aalto's work.

I have a friend who lives in the only building in Espoo (Tapiola) designed by Aalto. It is a high rise apartment building near the east beach with beautiful ocean views. But a building designed to bring light into the unit in Winter makes a sweltering hell hole in Summer. And angular shaped rooms make placing furniture an unfortunate challenge. In my opinion, the design was highly unsuccessful. But then again, in contrast to the other buildings in Tapiola during the city's inaugural years in the 1950s/1060s, I guess it is no better or worse (Aalto was bound by the strict housing laws as much as his contemporaries). I still find it hard to believe that the housing commision designed Tapiola as a garden city where the buildings blend into nature and Aalto actually bought into that. Didn't anyone ask them, "When was the last time you saw a square tree? Or a concrete stone?). Trust me, square is not a natural shape and concrete is not a natural building material so tall square concrete buildings do not blend). Oddly enough, the Sirens were architect contemporary of Aalto, designed similarly and in Tapiola, but did not reach similar fame.

I have a acquaintance from Germany but living in Finland who is an architect specializing in affordable single family housing. He works for a huge construction conglomerate and tries to do architecture on the side but there simply isn't a demand for unique or individually tailored homes. Perhaps the 1970s single family home construction problems put a fear into the nation that unique houses require unique materials and therefore added cost and potential headaches later. But since he and I both live in the fastest growing city in Finland, we see the same five house designs going up over and over again and it just mystifies us. Just as the same types of single family homes went up in the 1980s/90s (white brick 'chateau' type houses), 60s/70s (single floor red brick rectangles) and the 1950s (central chimney 2-story box wood houses) . Can you see the trend for 2000? (Victorian revival wood houses or 2-story rendered brick/concrete block boxes with a porch and 2nd story balcony).

And that sameness of architecture is repeated in industrial buildings. As Hank W noted, the big 1980s construction boom in the city centers resulted in cities made of porcelain tiled boxes. And how did Finnish architecture improve on that in the more recent past? Thanks to the Nokia school of architecture, now we have corporate office buildings made of concrete blocks with glass panels bolted on the side (is a glass block building better than a bathroom-tiled building? Drive to Ruoholahti and see for yourself).

But there is some hope for architects in Finland. I did meet one young and very enterprising Finnish architect while house shopping last year. We met at a 1950s 'architect designed house' in Tapiola. The house was clearly an original design and had many features that were advanced for the period (e.g., open plan stairway, lack of central chimney). But it was in extremely poor condition - barely livable and not upgraded (e.g., lacking triple glazed windows, a shower, pipes/plumbing, etc.). The architect made his money buying the houses, living in them and restoring them. I wanted that house badly and wouldn't even have minded living in it in that shabby condition - but it was out of my price range. I hope he bought it and restored it since it was clearly a wonderful house at one time (and in a prime location in Suvikumpu Tapiola). And it was encouraging to meet people who wanted to sympathetically restore a house rather than tear it down for the cookie cutter houses of today.

I also point out a new building going up in Tapiola just before the freeway entrance at West End station. It is a multi story office building commissioned by FinnForest for their headquarters and made of wood rather than steel or concrete (it will be the tallest wooden building in Europe). It has swooping curvilinear shapes (http://www.finnforest.ch/page.asp?path=1;597;8055;8056) and a beautiful and rich wood siding (stained and not painted). I am really looking forward to the completion of that building. Sadly, that building's design competition as well as nearly every other high profile building competition including the Museum of Modern Art in Helsinki and the Senate building extension, was won by a foreigner and not a Finnish architect. That, to me, really tells the story of Finland's architectural downfall.

And amid the tile mess of the 1980s/90s, there were some interesting archtectural experiments, including the angular (read: triangular) terassitalo housing complex and graphic concrete park of pikku Huopalahti in Helsinki (http://www.emporis.com/en/cd/cm/?id=106168). But you have to contrast the Pikku Huopalahti developments with the Leppavaaras.

You could say that Finland's strong desire for conformity has manifested (and influenced) greatly the architecture of the country. The one true visionary period was the Finnish Romantic Movement at the turn of the century. And Saarinen and the others were summarily forced to abandon the style within 5 years in order that Helsinki architecture be more like the rest of Europe. Everything that came after that was cookie-cutter housing for the masses (yes, I appreciate the influence the paucity of the war years inflicted on the country's psyche and architecture). But drive down Mannerheim in Northern Helsinki and tell me that is a beautiful city?

Aalto's popularity has truly mystified me. If anything, he simply recycled Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus movement. He also didn't create the 'white' movement - that was the result of the rationalist and functionalist ideals of replicating monotonous Greek island housing and pretending it makes Finnish architecture 'lighter' and 'sunnier'.

It's really is too bad that Aalto's legacy isn't standing the test of time. Poor acoustics and lack of usable space in the Finlandia Talo and concave roofs and decomposing marble tiles aside, it will be curious to see how well the Aalto legacy stands up to the futurein the eyes of the world.

Personally, I'll take a contemporary of Aalto, Eero Saarinen's, work any day (is the TWA terminal fabulous, or what?).

Now I feel like going downtown and drooling over the Pohjola building once again....

[Hank W.]

I can also say that if someone in Finland encounters weird/crap/unusable stuff in a house the exclamation is "tämä on kyllä arkkitehdin suunnittelema"
i.e. "this has been planned by an architect" = person lacking common sense. Like those windows you need 6 meter ladders to go clean. Architects and interior designers ought to be put live & work in their designs before building them for people.

BTW That "wood building" looks really cool.

[Xochiquetzal]

I can also say that if someone in Finland encounters weird/crap/unusable stuff in a house the exclamation is "tämä on kyllä arkkitehdin suunnittelema"
i.e. "this has been planned by an architect" = person lacking common sense. Like those windows you need 6 meter ladders to go clean. Architects and interior designers ought to be put live & work in their designs before building them for people.

BTW That "wood building" looks really cool.

The wood building looks even better in person. It's still a bit boxy - but the circula rotunda on the end looks over the Lansivayla and gives it a nice curvilinear appeal.

My father was a master land planner (he designed garden communities like Tapiola all over the US). He would take us kids to a mall and if there were trees in annoying places in the parking lot and traffic congested around poorly designed arteries, he would lament that it was designed by an architect and not an engineer. So now I know the phrase in Finnish too - thanks Hank W!

Anyway, to answer the original question more succinctly, I can't see any advantage from having studied in Finland and getting ANY job here when you are a foreigner is extremely difficult. If an architect would like Finland on his or her resume, that person would only need to enter one of the many contests sponsored by the Finnish government for public buildings. Finnish architecture rose to greatness as a result of the tradition of having open competitions to let talent rise to the top (e.g., even Saarinen and Aalto had to win competitions for their great pieces - they weren't handed the assignment). There are always public buildings or areas waiting to be won by talented and enterprising architects - of any nationality.

Just please don't design any more boxes with glass panels tacked on the outside.

[Cod]

..just stumbled upon this post..strangely havn't been logging in since I've been so busy sending off CV applications to...Finland [lower eyes, shake head]...

..nice discourse from Xochiquetzal..quite sobering but there are a couple of things to consider.

GDP(loose cash!) and climate.

You can't build a housing development such as BedZED http://www.bedzed.org.uk/ in finland without a whole lot of funding. If a country like UK can only afford one such development from a morass of funding sources, what hope has a small country like Finland. In a nutshell is a comparison of Finnish architecture and New Zealand architecture - two countrys. New Zealand has NO internationally renowned architects (apart from a few expats working 'big names') and the nation is a dearth of good architectural taste. Compare to Finland and with the likes of the Hirvonen-Huttunen, Rainer Mahlamaeki and Ilmari Lahdelma etc etc who work internationally. With all due respect, the Nokia building has been replicated across Europe, not because its cheap but because it is a repected design. Finland has in my opinion, far more high quality buildings per head than the likes a country like New Zealand, comparable in population and general 'spare cash'...

And with climate..well come to London, have a look around some the the buildings here by Lasdun or Lubetkin and you'll find buildings from a similar era with similar materials to Aalto but noy dealing with old age particularly well. Buildings from the 60's didn't age well. We know a whole lot more about how to avoid those same mistakes now than we ever did...but in the meantime, don't shoot the messenger!

..and in the defense of architects..don't forget that a design team is made up of the client (I want to make a killing on this building), the quantity surveyor (wood? no chance, make it from concrete- I don't price for wood), the engineer (I agree with the QS, concrete is far safer.., and lots of it to keep my PI insurance premium down), the construction manager (my bonus rests on me getting this thing built so DONT EVEN THINK of using anything other than what I've been building with over the last fourty years ie concrete and lots of it) and the builder ( can't get hold of any carpenters so you'll have to build it in concrete).

this was rushed..sorry

[Bob Hamilton]

When we first moved to Finland, we had an apartment with a bedroom window looking out on an Aalto-designed mill. It's an ugly, run-down monstrosity that is gradually falling apart. Apparently it can't be torn down because it's a 'heritage' building. But there's no funding to fix it up or even prevent further decay. So the local residents have to live with this eye-sore.

I think the authorities will eventually have to learn to think it through more carefully before making every product of a 'name' architect a heritage site.

This should set off a few howls of outrage

[Cod]

"The Eiffel Tower is the Empire State Building after taxes"

Wonder how many of us would have joined the 300 who signed a petition to have the Eiffle Tower torn down soon after it was built because it is naked ugliness.

Strangely, a hundred years later, we're kinda glad that they didn't have their way.

Aalto was a clever bloke, ask Glen Murcutt (lead Ozzie architect who constantly refers to him) etc etc, completely different look to his buildings but following the same principles as Aalto.

Buildings speak volumes about the society that built them..we need to swing the demolition ball carefully since once its gone....its never ever coming back!

[Hank W.]

You don't have snow in Oz...

[Henry-Finland]

Wooden architecture - much better done in Germany.
The building of wooden houses was highly restricted with the (former) law that it was forbidden to make wooden houses higher that 2 stores.

Finnish arcitecture of one family houses sucks - too little light, seldom roof-windows (that you can open in the summer etc.).

Finnish architecture is a myth. Nice for some years, but then looking like a piece of !"#¤%.
Exception: Saarinen and the guys who made the older parts of central Helsinki.

Henry

[Cod]

..ok, here it is, check this link...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/elizabeth-farrelly/i-am-you-are-we-are--mediocre/2005/07/12/1120934223577.html?oneclick=true

Finland, Denmark, Holland etc run circles round the architects in in the antipodes which is why many of the big commisions in Australia are given to Europeans in an attempt to avoid mediocrity...

[Cod]

if the link didn't work...here's the text..its from the Sydney Morning Herald

I am, you are, we are ... mediocre
July 9, 2005

Great buildings don't just happen, writes Elizabeth Farrelly, and Australia seems to go out of its way to prevent them.

A recent study in the Harvard Design Magazine describes the Sydney Opera House as a "tragedy in world architecture" compared, for example, with the "triumph" of Frank Gehry's Guggenheim at Bilbao. Not only did Sydney cop a 1400 per cent cost blow-out and a building unsuited to opera, we also contrived, through government and cultural incompetence, to "destroy the career of its architect, Joern Utzon and [so] ... rob the world of the oeuvre of an undisputed master". The London Review of Books takes similar delight in describing the part played by the characteristic venality, corruption and philistinism of "King George's gulag" in turning Utzon's fabled interiors into "a mess of tacky ideas reminiscent of a bingo hall in, say, Middlesbrough". All this is reasonably familiar in spirit, of course, being only a slight advance on our own standard view of the Opera House fiasco as an exercise in advanced knee-jerk poppy-cutting.

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AdvertisementBut what we're all missing is this: poppy-cutting is way too negative an approach. People need to understand that our devotion, in Sydney, to fully fledged cultural mediocrity is far more heartfelt, more positive and more altruistic than that. It's deep - and, for that matter, broad.

Deeper still, of course, is the ironic contrast between the mediocrity of our institutional culture and the outright exuberance of the place to which we apply it. And sure, we have our energetic cultural moments. On the whole, though, they're the passing, ephemeral bits, like beach culture, Mardi Gras or fringe cabaret. It's almost as though the enduring rocks of culture - the institutions, the places, the professions - intimidate us as much as the continent itself, so we confine our play to their edges. And the mediocrity persists. You can see it in our universities, rapidly morphing from temples of higher learning into profit centres. You can see it in our suburbs, selflessly determined to prioritise today's air-con over tomorrow's breathing. You can see it in the way we struggle to cocoon our lives so that risk and (God forbid) death barely rate cognisance. And you can see it in our arts, fearlessly fostering political correctness in all its dreary forms. Let's not undersell ourselves here. Mediocrity is what we do best. It's how we know we're Australian.

And now, at East Darling Harbour, is our chance to show the world we can still do it; still take a site to rival any in the world, and turn it into a shining exemplar of the bog-ordinary. In less than a month from now you'll be able to judge for yourself, when the entries from the 140-odd registrants will be exhibited. So far, about 30 per cent are from overseas. Will they achieve the levels of mediocrity we expect?

The Harvard Design Magazine piece was written by Danish academic Professor Bent Flyvbjerg (no, really). He's a bit of a Utzon-head himself, needless to say; lives in Utzon's childhood home town of Aalborg, beside the Utzon Centre and a stone's throw from several of the few Utzon buildings that exist. His question was this: why did the Opera House leave Utzon so diminished - reclusive, bitter, chronically under-employed - while Bilbao simply puffed Gehry from star into megastar?

Flyvbjerg's answer is complex, though perhaps not quite as complex as the reality. It includes politics, of course, money and the mediocrity thing. Also, premier J.J.Cahill's knowing underestimation of the cost at $7 million (it would escalate to $102 million) in order to get the project up in the first place; his determination to start on site, well before it was prudent, to render the deed irreversible; the 1960 Opera House Act that required him to beg parliamentary approval for every 10 per cent increase, despite the lottery funding; the imminent election; Cahill's successor Robert Askin's philistine determination to play politician, not patron; public works minister Davis Hughes's primitive antipathy to Utzon from the outset.

We know that the cost overruns continued, and worsened, after Utzon's dismissal. But we - or at least I - did not know that, for example, as Utzon's younger son Kim alleges, "a full revolving stage and ... rigging loft ... from Germany were removed [after Utzon left]. They also dynamited part of the structure ..."

Of course there are other factors as well, including the vast technical and technological advances - the visualisation, prototyping and digital modelling tools - that made Bilbao possible for Gehry but were inconceivable in 1964. Not to mention the architect's personal capacity to weather the sturm und drang of politics.

A crucial factor, though, is what Gehry calls "the organisation of the artist". Gehry doesn't get out of bed unless a power structure designed to "prevent political and business interest from interfering with design" prevails. He doesn't allow the client to start on site until he's sure the building is deliverable within budget. (The client, remember, is the one paying the bills.) In other words, he's a total control freak, and that, it seems, is the key to delivering the goods.

Of course that's what an architect would say. There isn't an architect on the planet who wouldn't do it that way, given his druthers, so what's special about Gehry that he can - other than global fame?

Could institution-to-artist trust of this kind ever happen here? We might like to think so. But the signs are bad. Think Macquarie, think Burley Griffin, think Utzon. All geniuses. All summoned for their immensity of talent, all sent packing for daring to outstrip our precious mediocrity. Trust of the power kind between an institution and an artist may need a special kind of artist, yes, but also a special kind of institution.

Bob Carr clearly doesn't think we're ready to abandon our mediocrity habit just yet. Early talk on the East Darling Harbour redevelopment was all of an icon on the site's northern tip to answer the Opera House, but Carr's competition brief concentrates on the big issues: getting 330,000 square metres of office, hotel and residential space onto the site in a large floorplate format up to 14 storeys that covers no more than a third of the site. The rest of it, in what reads as a recipe for more of King Street Wharf's low-rent office-park look, will be roads and grass. All wheelchair-accessible, water-sensitive, ecologically innovative - oh, and self-funding. All to be selected by a 10-person committee of a jury, comprising three departmental heads, three developers, three architects and a scientist, that makes the Opera House's four-architect affair lean and mean by comparison. The working harbour remains, if you call the odd cruise liner and Tasmanian ferry "working". Everything else is sanitised out of existence.

What of the icon? Well, that has been shelved, for a century or so. And in view of the parallels - coming election, reigning monetarism, philistine opposition and a business and political culture that, in Gehry's words, tends to "treat the creative people like women" - maybe it's just as well.