The Aalto House: Revealing a Creative Partnership
The Aalto House, built in the 1930s, is located on the then almost-untouched Riihitie in Helsinki’s Munkkiniemi district. It served as the family home and studio to Aino and Alvar Aalto, allowing the pair to bring their philosophy of “the beauty of the everyday” to life. Now a part of the Aalto Museum, it remains a quintessential example of modernist architecture. But further to this, it reveals the collaborative nature of Aino and Alvar Aalto’s marriage and professional partnership.
Maija Holma © Alvar Aalto Museum
Aino and Alvar moved frequently in the years leading up to the Riihitie home, often dealing with a fraught financial situation. Finally, in 1933, they moved to Helsinki, hoping for a steady income and greater opportunity to secure commissions. The plans for Riihitie were begun in 1935 and the deeds were signed later that year. In 1936, the family moved in and remained in some part until Alvar’s second wife, Elissa, died in 1994.
Although not the first residential building designed by the Aaltos, the Riihitie house was the first family home they designed for themselves and their specific needs. While modest by contemporary standards, the house is undoubtedly special in the way it weaves Aino and Alvar’s professional and personal life together.
The two functions of the Aalto House can be seen clearly from the exterior. The studio, housed in a slim wing with white-painted, lightly rendered brickwork, hugs the side of the family home clad in slender, dark-stained timber battens. The Aaltos’ approach to design – characterised by clean lines, organic forms and a seamless integration of function and aesthetics – is immediately evident.
Natural light fills the house through expansive windows, which blur the boundary between the interiors and the garden. Central to the home’s design is the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art”, which Alvar embraced throughout his career.
In this concept, every element is brought together to create a cohesive whole. It’s exemplified in the house through combinations of materials or pieces that blend form with function: A light hangs over the table, casting a soft glow beneath and out to one side to illuminate nearby artwork; Alvar’s distinctive and revolutionary wood bending technique is referenced throughout the furniture but also in decorative pieces created by Aino.
Alvar Aalto, The Aalto House © Alvar Aalto Foundation, alvaraalto.fi
Maija Holma © Alvar Aalto Museum
Alvar Aalto, The Aalto House © Alvar Aalto Foundation, alvaraalto.fi
Maija Holma © Alvar Aalto Museum
The house and studio bears Alvar’s typical rationalism of pure lines and reduced aesthetics, but is softened by Aino’s additions of textiles and natural materials – a hallmark of her creative direction at Artek. It’s this combination of simplicity and humanity which has influenced Finnish design to this day. While simple and uncluttered, the Aalto House is undoubtedly a family home and a true representation of Aino and Alvar’s creative partnership.
Although Aino only lived in this home for a short period – she died just 13 years after its completion, after which Alvar stayed for a further 27 years – her presence is unmistakable.
As Heikki Aalto-Alanen, Aino’s grandson, explains in Aino and Alvar Aalto: A Life Together:
“[After Aino’s death] Alvar would certainly have had the means to design a new house for himself and Elissa, his second wife, but he did not want to do so. The Riihite house represents something in Aino and Alvar’s shared life and work that Alvar could not leave behind, even after Aino’s death.
“To this day, whenever I visit the Riihtie house, it still feels more like Aino’s house than anyone else’s. The more I have tried to enter into the world that Aino and Alvar shared and where they built up their life’s work, the more powerfully I feel Aino’s presence at Riihtie.”
Alvar Aalto, The Aalto House © Alvar Aalto Foundation, alvaraalto.fi