Finland: Modern Architectures in History (Reaktion Books - Modern Architectures in History)

286 Pages·2006·7.36 MB·English

by  Roger Connah

FINLAND
Roger Connah
modern architectures in history

Finland
modern architectures in history
This international series examines the forms and consequences of modern
architecture. Modernist visions and revisions are explored in their national
context against a backdrop of aesthetic currents, economic developments,
political trends and social movements. Written by experts in the architectures
of the respective countries, the series provides a fresh, critical reassessment of
Modernism's positive and negative effects, as well as the place of architectural
design in twentieth-century history and culture.
Series editor: Vivian Constantinopoulos
Forthcoming:
Britain
Alan Powers
France
Jean-Louis Cohen
Germany
Iain Boyd Whyte
Greece
Alexander Tzonis and Alkistis Rodi
Italy
Diane Ghirardo
Japan
Botond Bognar
Spain
David Cohn
Turkey
Sibel Bozdogan
USA
Gwendolyn Wright
Finland
Roger Connah
REAKTION BOOKS
For Nadezna Alice,may this help her trace
the more than small ‘hope’in her name
In the land ofher forefathers,The Land that is Not
Published by Reaktion Books Ltd
33Great Sutton Street
London ec1v 0dx,uk
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk
First published 2005
Copyright © Roger Connah 2005
The publishers gratefully acknowledge support for the publication ofthe book
by the following:
Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts
The Finnish Institute in London
Embassy ofFinland
All rights reserved
No part ofthis publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system,or trans-
mitted,in any form or by any means,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording
or otherwise,without the prior permission ofthe publishers.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cromwell Press Ltd,Trowbridge,Wiltshire
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Connah,Roger
Finland.– (Modern architectures in history)
1.Architecture – Finland – 20th century
I.Title
720.9’1897’0904
isbn1 86189 250 0
Contents
7 Introduction: Modern Architecture and the Shape of History
one
27 Pioneering Finnish Modernism
two
49 Independence: Rehearsals for Modernism
three
77 White Functionalism: The Modern Agenda
four
101 War: Standardization and Solidarity
five
125 Expressive Modernism: The Banquet Years
six
157 Fellow Travelling: Militancy, Mies and Constructivism
seven
185 Deconstruction and Reconstruction
eight
211 Late Modernism, Critical Humanism
241 Epilogue: History and the Shape of Modernism
249 References
269 Select Bibliography
273 Acknowledgements
275 Photo Acknowledgements
277 Index

Introduction
Modern Architecture
and the Shape of History
How do I know what sleep is?
and where the shoulder ends and the breast begins?
Make this poem into an inexpensive winter home for me,
with lots ofcupboards,
and furnish me a room for the soul,
and I’ll live in this line a long time,
in verses that don’t flake,
a liveable voice,a house.
Paavo Haavikko,The Winter Palace1
In terms ofland area Finland is a mid-sized European state with nearly
one quarter of its territory north of the Arctic Circle.With more than
80,000 islands and 188,000 lakes, the country lies on the edge of the
Eurasian boreal coniferous zone,with 70 per cent of land area as pro-
ductive forests of pine,spruce and birch.Finland’s climate is extreme,
though milder than expected for its northern location.The seasons are
radical and different.Light varies in subtler ways,often unrecognizable
to those from harsher,lighter cultures.The polar night or kaamoslasts
52days in northernmost Lapland,and in the south the lack of daylight
can produce serious trauma, which reaches deep within the cultural,
environmental and architectural psyche.The population reached 3mil-
lion in 1914and 4million in 1950.Then the birth rate sagged as the shift
from a rural to urban society produced an emigration to Sweden in
search ofjobs.Gradually,by 1991the population had reached 5million,
and by spring 2000the official census put the population at 5,171,302.
More than two-thirds of Finns are of working age (15–64) and over 51
per cent ofthe population are women.2
Architecture has in many ways not only helped to modernize Finland
but has proved more than useful in a country adept at making its own from
a tradition not its own.Modernism and modern architecture became both
Raili and Reima Pietilä, myth and reality,both tradition and innovation.To many outside Finland,
Official Residence Finnish architecture and its associated ‘Finnishness’ represent – albeit
of the President of
loosely – something pure,honest,direct and environmentally successful.
Finland, Mäntyniemi,
Helsinki, 1984–93. The leading critic ofthe Modern Movement,Siegfried Giedion,was one of
Helsinki cityscape the first outside the country in the 1930s and ’40s to begin to celebrate,
with J. S. Sirén’s through the work of Alvar Aalto, an architecture that was natural,
Finnish Parliament
regional,civilized,humane and Finnish.In the 1950s,the banquet years,
(centre) and the
Kiasma Museum of Finland was the place to be, and Finnish architecture began to cele-
Contemporary Art brate this ‘reading’as more people – internationally – took notice of
(right).
it.Eventually Finnishness would stand in – metonymically – for notions
about the whole culture:pure,honest,direct.At the end ofthe twentieth
century,encouraged and realigned by Postmodernism and the rise in the
media role within architecture,the Finnish culture had learnt to judge itself
by how well it performed to these notions ofFinnishness.This not only
brought more deserved attention to the small country,it produced a
careful solidarity within the architectural profession.Today an architecture
encouraged by material polish,tectonic finesse and careful articulation has
currently become international again and strangely spectacular.As poetic
and professionally seductive as this architecture is,the question has to be
posed:is it as natural and humane as in the banquet years ofthe 1950s?
How, then, are we to approach the history of Modernism and
modern architecture in a single country? The critical unity ofany era,
8