Elevated architecture: The houses of Alvar Aalto

There is an ulterior motive, too, in architecture, which is always peeping out from around the corner, the idea of creating paradise. It is the only purpose of our buildings. If we do not carry this idea with us the whole time, all our buildings would be simpler, more trivial and life would become, well, would life amount to anything at all? Every building, every work of architecture, is a symbol which has the aspiration to show us that we want to build a paradise on earth for ordinary mortals.

Alvar Aalto 1958

Paradise is what most of us strive to achieve in building our homes. We seek more than shelter from the elements and – here in the Philippines – from the cruel realities of our cities and towns. Our residential architecture has historically elevated occupants physically from the ground, but with modern technology, we need not take too drastic an intervention. Filipino architecture, however, has had difficulty evolving its own language because of the pervasive influence of (mainly) American architecture.

Filipino architects can nevertheless develop house designs to reflect Philippine culture more sensitively, make use of our rich resources of natural materials as well as integrate modern technology. To achieve this, our designers should emulate the achievements of past giants of modern architecture – not necessarily American – who have taken the path to nurture a design philosophy and architectural syntax that have produced distinctive architecture in their homelands, as well as influenced creative directions for global architecture. Such a master was the Finnish genius Alvar Aalto.

Aalto was one of my idols while studying architecture at the University of the Philippines. In the 1970s, his Finlandia cultural center in Helsinki was the toast of the architectural world. The complex is an elegant composition of white marble-clad buildings horizontally spread over a generous central city site in Helsinki. The building was Aalto’s last major work in a career that spanned close to half a century.

Although his ouevre included all types of civic and private structures from town halls, libraries, and universities to churches, hospitals, and stores, Aalto is celebrated for his funiture and industrial design and the beautiful houses that provided the settings for Finnish modern life.

Finland is on the other side of the world, but we have the opportunity today to view and experience the work of Aalto here in Manila. An exhibit at the Ayala Museum opens next week. Alvar Aalto Houses — Timeless Expressions showcases key single-family houses from Aalto’s prolific output between the 1920s and the 1970s. The human-scaled and warmly personal buildings are always engaged with their mostly natural surroundings. Aalto was one of the first modernists to open up interior spaces to the outside, influencing successive generations of architects worldwide, even fellow giants like Le Corbusier, Wright and Gropius.

The spatial character and physical flavor of Aalto’s architecture is distinctively Finnish. His houses’ warmth comes from the creative use of wonderful Finnish timber and ordinary bricks, along with modern concrete. His interior and architectural detailing showed his extensive knowledge of his building materials and methods of construction – a strength and creative skill today’s architects should build – before they actually build.

Aalto was also a great manipulator of the three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension of lighting – natural and artificial, which he used to great effect – and utility for energy-efficient designs decades before they became fashionable.

Fashionable, too, was his furniture designs like the Paimio chair (which he designed for patients at a local sanitarium in 1933) and smaller accessories like the classic Savoy vase – copied endlessly to this day. Aalto can show the way forward for our own Filipino furniture designers – and some already show his influence though they may not be conscious of it – in the handling of wood and metal as well as construction detailing that guarantees superb build quality.

Aalto’s legacy of design, from the small-scale lamps to architecture and even city planning, is a storehouse of inspiration. The climate and culture of Finland may be foreign to us here in the tropics. There are, however, three major things from Aalto and his creations we can learn from. First is his philosophy of design, which places importance on the human and cultural experience of space and form. Secondly, the sensitivity to the possibilities of natural materials within the practical context of modern construction. Finally, we need that constant motive, which Aalto had, to produce paradise on earth with architecture that elevates daily life from the banality that defines so much our modern existence.

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Alvar Aalto Houses: Timeless Expressions will be on view at the Ayala Museum, 4th floor, Makati City. It will run until Nov. 13 with gallery hours from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.,Tuesday to Friday, and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com.