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This article discusses the epistemology of design as a process, arguing specifically that sketching and drawing are essential modes of thinking and reasoning. It demonstrates that the commonly accepted notion of a spontaneous and intuitive vision in the mind's eye—encapsulated in the cliché of the napkin sketch—obscures the exploratory inferences that are made while scribbling with a pencil on a sheet of paper. The draughtsperson, along with their work tools (such as the 6B), modes of notation, specific techniques, and epistemic strategies as well as the resulting design artefacts form milieus of reflection that facilitate complex processes of exploration. Case studies, including the genesis of the Mini by Alec Issigonis, samples of work by Alvar Aalto, and a reinterpretation of student sketches from a classical design study by Gabriela Goldschmidt, serve to illustrate how drawing inferences with pencil and paper occurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Architectural Journal / Jian Zhu Xue Bao is the property of Architectural Journal Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In Finland the construction of post-war neighbourhoods started in 1950, but its ideological background was in the planning of the 1940s. As has been shown, the principles of Anglo-American neighbourhood unit planning and regional planning influence the structural principles that were adopted for neighbourhood units. This paper presents another narrative for the period by analysing the work of the architect Alvar Aalto, who was a pioneer of Finnish regional planning and was significantly active in community planning. After having established good relations with Finnish industry, he got the chance to develop his own community planning principles. They became close to the principles of neighbourhood unit planning but, at the same time, were personal and extended beyond them. This paper examines in closer detail three of Aalto's plans and the way he combined planning and building design. In this way it is possible to better understand the ideas of the 1940s and the importance of Finnish industry during this time. Aalto's activity during the 1940s also explains his success in later decades. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Alvar Aalto's Vuoksenniska Church (1958) has been widely discussed in architectural literature, often in general terms of plasticity or ambiguity. Yet previous studies have given relatively little consideration to the approximately 800 archived sketches and drawings for the project. When a limited number of Aalto's sketches for the church have appeared previously, an isolated sketch has often been used to illustrate a single aspect or element of the church, such as a notable lighting or acoustic detail. The church's complexity and spatial qualities make it well suited for more detailed study, using sketches and drawings to clarify the design process of the church and provide new insights. The most important sketches and drawings from the church's design process are presented and discussed in this paper. They illustrate how the design process began with simple sketches, in plan and section, for folding and moveable partitions, highlighting Aalto's priority for balancing religious and social activities in the church through divisible meeting spaces. Acoustical considerations were also combined in these earlier plans, while section sketches show how the church's skylight and unique clerestory windows were gradually developed through several iterations. The threefold repetition of elements in both plan and section was consistent throughout the design process. The structure of the church was designed with simple organic motifs like frogs and fish, but was also intentionally combined with other key elements. While previous studies have emphasised one aspect of the church or another, Aalto's sketches taken together offer a more holistic understanding. They show the interrelated nature of different elements in the church and the relative relationships between different sketches and ideas in the design process. As a work of architecture, the church's definitive qualities of architectural harmony and coherence are far more compelling than any one particular feature or notable detail. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Architect Alvar Aalto's (Finland, 1898-1976) production in the l930's involved large projects for Finnish paper industry. One of his most important commissioners was the Ahlström Company. After personally knowing both Mr Harry Gullichsen (1902-54), the director of the company, and his wife Mrs. Maire Gullichsen (b. 1907, née Ahlström) for some years he was asked in 1937 to prepare a general plan and a housing scheme for Kauttua, one of the company's production sites. Kauttua, in southwestern Finland, had a long industrial history and a core of historical buildings. Now a paper refinery plant was being started and housing was needed. Aalto suggested several alternatives for the plan and sketched new housing types. Only one of the intended buildings was completed in 1938. This is a multi-storey block on a slope with straight access to all apartments and with roof terraces. Factors such as health, nature, education and sports were evident in the planning ideology. The rather wide-ranging plans and the built fragment have been analyzed in this paper as an example of patronage, where the patron, Mr Gullichsen, and the artist, architect Aalto, mutually arrive at a certain functional and aesthetic conclusion. Mr Gullichsen wanted to demonstrate his zest for modernity in production, management and architectural environment and used Aalto as an instrument. Through the opportunity given to him Aalto was able to experiment and manifest his architectural ideas in an almost ideal situation. Mr Gullichsen also sought after a model on which to base the housing projects on his company's many production sites. The investment in high-quality, consciously modernist architecture would be repaid in stability and increased efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Several letters to the editor are presented in response to articles in previous issues including an obituary for maestro Jorn Utzon, an article "Diller + Scofidio," by Christopher Pierce, and the examination of architect Alvar Aalto's designs as integrated spatial and climatic events, by Ulrike Passe.

In the present work, we focus on some of the current trends used in furniture design, from a dual point of view: differential geometry of curves and surfaces, and the existing perspective deriving from the usual techniques of computer-aided design. The contributions of architects such as Alvar Aalto, Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, Arne Jacobsen and Charles and Ray Eames to contemporary chair design are related to these techniques. Among them, we point out those which are performed by means of spatial geometric transformations of curves and surfaces, with an emphasis on ruled surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the relationship of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto with German industrial builder Ernst Neufert and their roles in architectural standardization in Germany and Finland. It explores the transnational networks that sustained the National Socialists during World War II. It describes Aalto's ties to Nazi Germany and his involvement in creating the Finnish Standardization Office and in facilitating the goals of prefabrication conglomerates such as Puutalo Oy.

This article presents a comprehensive overview of the wood reliefs designed by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto to highlight their importance for both furniture and architecture. They are examined from three main perspectives: first, as experimental models, gradually increasing in complexity and related to different techniques for bending and forming wood for furniture design; second, as formal or sculptural material studies that further complemented Aalto's lectures and interest in rationalism and elastic standardization for both architecture and furniture; and finally, as straightforward exhibition pieces solely for promotional and advertising purposes, thereby reflecting the original manifesto of the Artek design company. Far beyond playful models, the reliefs were therefore critical to Aalto's furniture, architecture, and promotion as a prominent modern architect and designer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses aspects of architectural drawings. Topics include contemporary drawing techniques through the use of computer software, the concept of domestic space and public space, and Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Particular focus is also given to Pierre Bourdieu's book "Outline of a Theory of Practice."

The 2006 renovation of Harvard University’s Woodberry Poetry Room, one of the few American designs by the noted Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, sparked an international controversy over the means and ends of architectural preservation. Arching over these debates about architectural heritage, the responsibility of the Harvard administration, the quality of Fixler’s renovation, and so on, were larger, often unarticulated, questions about what constitutes a poetic text or an architectural work, whether they have definitive forms, and what their responsibilities are to the people who use them. I explain how the different constituents invested in this specific project bring to the table different understandings of the purpose of the room and its preservation, and the distinction between the physical design and the “institution” and collection it houses. I argue that the controversy over the recent renovation reflects disagreement regarding the fluidity or fixity of the architectural “object” and the poetic text—disagreements informed by theoretical and pragmatic debates in librarianship, pedagogy, media and literary studies, and architectural preservation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on 20th-century Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. The author describes Aalto's status as Finnish figure and discusses how his style differs from the Modern Movement of architecture. Other topics addressed include architectural critic Sigfried Giedion's views on Aalto, how Finnish architecture is unique from other architecture, the role of play in Aalto's designs, and how Aalto's work is related to artist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The article offers information on the creation of Aalto atelier as a corporate masterpiece of Aino Marsio-Aalto, Elissa Aalto, and Alvar Aalto to identify specific skills and roles on the partners in Finland. It states that the atelier's interior architecture and materials are catered by Aino-Marsio's expertise while Alissa manages the artistic and managerial responsibility. Meanwhile, Alvar pronounces the prevailing characteritis of the atelier's intent and process.

We examine recurring patterns of discontinuity in the designs of the Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto (1898-1976). Discontinuity expresses an ambiguous duality of incompletion (growth) and ruination (decay). We take examples from architecture, painting, sculpture, glassware, furniture, landscape and urban planning. We suggest that the typically fragmented skylines, voids and irregularity of Aalto's architecture all rely on the repeated use of a relatively economical (but infinitely elaborated) set of form-making strategies. Further, we argue that these same strategies of discontinuity and incompletion extend over all branches of his design work. Discontinuity echoes the essential nature of the human condition and is a reason for the continuing appeal of Aalto's work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mediating between forest and garden, tradition and modernity, a small wooden gate at Alvar Aalto's Villa Mairea is shown to be deeply rooted in Finnish cultural memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alvar Aalto requisitioned aspects of Finnish vernacular culture in the process of generating his work. This was neither the cataloguing nor the transference of vernacular details, but the personal and creative response to the forest context and the vernacular crafting therein. The discussion of Aalto's personal strife will demonstrate the congruence between his own situation and that to which he is drawn for creative inspiration – i.e., between his personal 'gap' and the socio-cultural 'lack'. His example of softening or 'humanising' Modernism will be shown to be rooted in this congruence. The 'lack' indigenous buildings of Karelia were revisited in the wake of National Romanticism, and found to offer some thing of a natural order that seemed, perhaps incongruously to modern minds, to be compatible with contemporary human conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finmar Ltd., a wholesale firm, was one of the major importers of Scandinavian furniture to the UK in the period 0934-65. This article looks at the operation of the company after the Second World War, from 0949 to 1952, charting the goods that were imported, consumption patterns, and the restrictions the firm faced, in order to show how the UK market for Scandinavian furniture developed. Although Finmar had imported Alvar Aalto's plywood furniture from Finland before the war, its source of goods changed to Denmark in 1949 when the company was sold to a Dane, Paul Stemann. Under his direction the company expanded rapidly, starting with Danish factory-made versions of Windsor chairs that fitted the Utility regulations, and was, by the time the Utility regulations were dropped, selling a much greater range of goods too number of large, London-based department stores ouch as Heal's and Liberty's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]