Acknowledgments

Pelkonen, Eeva-Liisa

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Acknowledgments

Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen

Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics

Acknowledgments

Author

Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23380

Acknowledgments

I owe a great deal to many people since I began my doctoral studies at Columbia University in the late 1990s. My dissertation, “Empathetic Affinities: Alvar Aalto and His Milieus,” was conceived as an intellectual group biography, which looked at Aalto’s various social and intellectual milieus at home and abroad. Geopolitics emerged as a major theme. When Yale University Press gave me the opportunity to write a book on the topic, I decided to emphasize this aspect. The dominance of geographic themes and political subtexts makes Aalto more topical than ever. Through his architecture he confronted the world’s large-scale economic and political changes.

The project has matured and evolved thanks to reviews and comments of many people. Gwendolyn Wright helped me to understand what it means to write an intellectual biography. Barry Bergdoll, Kenneth Frampton, Karsten Harries, and Mark Wigley all in different ways helped me to focus my argument. Fred Koetter, former dean of the Yale School of Architecture, allowed me to take time off from teaching for my doctoral studies. Dean Robert A. M. Stern has given me the opportunity to test my ideas through teaching.

Mia Hipeli and Arne Heporauta of the Alvar Aalto Archive helped me navigate Aalto’s correspondence and library even as the collection was being catalogued. Marjo Holma, Katariina Pakoma, and Risto Raittila at the Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyväskylä and Päivi Lukkarinen at the Museum of Finnish Architecture provided crucial assistance with images. I want also to thank Beverly Lett, Tanya Alen, and Christopher Zollo, of Yale University’s Arts Library, who never lost patience with my endless requests for often obscure books and magazines. My nephew Eero Nurmi was diligent in helping me locate archival images in Finnish collections.

Numerous colleagues and friends have offered important comments: Karla Britton, Jean-Louis Cohen, Roger Connah, Peggy Deamer, Keller Easterling, Britt Eversole, Romy Golan, Sarah Goldhagen, Alicia Imperiale, Sandy Isenstadt, Keith Krumwiede, Mary McLeod, Dietrich Neumann, Aino Niskanen, Joan Ockman, Ken Oshima, Nina Paavolainen, Alan Plattus, Demetri Porphyrios, Jonathan Schell, loanna Theocharopoulou, Lynnette Widder, Christopher Woods, and Claire Zimmerman. I am grateful to the students of my Aalto seminars for their contributions.

I thank Michelle Komie of Yale University Press for giving me the opportunity to work with her for the second time. I also thank her colleagues Daniella Berman, Heidi Downey, John Long, and Jena Sher. Eve Sinaiko’s skillful editorial comments helped sharpen the manuscript’s content and style. Ted Whitten proofread the final version and made some excellent last-minute suggestions.

The project has spanned the entire length of my thirteen-year marriage. My husband and colleague, Turner Brooks, has therefore, by default, read all versions of the text. I am thankful for his comments. Our two girls, Ida and Mia, were born during the process. I dedicate this book to my family, as well as to the memory of my mother, Eila Pelkonen, who died in 2006.

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Book details

BOOKAlvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics

Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00347

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23378

Perhaps no other great modern architect has been linked to a native country as closely as Alvar Aalto (1898–1976). Critics have argued that the essence of Finland flows, as if naturally, into his quasi-organic forms, ranging from such buildings as the Baker House in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to iconic 20th-century designs, including his Savoy vase and bent-plywood stacking stools.

What did Aalto himself say about the importance of nationalism and geography in his work and in architecture generally? With an unprecedented focus on the architect’s own writings, library, and critical reception, Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen proposes a dramatically different interpretation of Aalto’s oeuvre, revealing it as a deeply thoughtful response to his intellectual and cultural milieu—especially to Finland’s dynamic political circumstances following independence from Russia in 1917.

Pelkonen also considers the geographic and geopolitical narratives found in his writings. These include ideas about national style and national cultural revival, and about how architecture can foster cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and regionalism. Expanding the canonical reading of Aalto, this work promises to influence future inquiries on Aalto for generations to come.

"This novel interpretation sheds a clear light on Aalto's relationship with Finland's society and culture, not merely by better defining the architect's often overlooked 'context,' but by recreating the intellectual milieus in which he developed. Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen introduces a very fresh discussion of Aalto's writings and designs in the framework of Finland's modern history."—Jean-Louis Cohen, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

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Author

Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date May 2009 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300114287

EISBN 9780300273953

Illustrations 124

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

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