Alvar Aalto Foundation
Vision
The Alvar Aalto Foundation works for the benefit of a better everyday environment and design culture, based on the lifetime’s work of Alvar Aalto and his humanist and ecological values.
Mission
It is the task of the Foundation to take care of Alvar Aalto’s material and spiritual heritage and ensure its continuation. The activities of the Foundation promote Aalto’s work and ideas and make them better known. The Foundation takes care of the Alvar Aalto collections and administers them, arranges exhibitions, produces publications and plays its part in architectural and design education in collaboration with other actors in the field. The Foundation also assists in the repair of Aalto buildings and supervises the product development of everyday articles.
Alvar Aalto Foundation
The Alvar Aalto Foundation is a charitable institution which preserves Alvar Aalto’s work and makes it better known. The activities and research of the Foundation are based on Aalto’s architectural drawings and writings, to which it holds the copyright. The Foundation administers buildings in Helsinki and Jyväskylä that are important from the point of view of Aalto’s personal history. The Foundation participates in open discussion with other actors in the field of architectural and design culture.
Alvar Aalto Museum
The Alvar Aalto Foundation maintains a special museum of architecture in Jyväskylä, which acts as a national and international centre for information on Aalto. The Museum, which is housed in a building designed by Aalto, produces publications linked with Aalto and organises exhibitions both in Finland and abroad. The Museum is custodian of collections of original material, such as drawings and objects. Aalto’s work and architectural ideas are made real to visitors by the genuine articles, surfaces, photographs and drawings that are permanently on display.
The Museum’s Architectural Heritage Department acts as a centre of expertise on Aalto’s architecture. It supports the preservation of Aalto’s architectural heritage, acts as a database on construction and provides expert assistance to those who use and those who repair Aalto buildings. The Architectural Heritage Department is housed in the Aalto Studio building in Helsinki.
Riihitie House
The two architects Alvar and Aino Aalto, as a young married couple, designed a home for themselves in the Helsinki suburb of Munkkiniemi, which also housed the offices of Alvar Aalto, Architects until 1955 when a new office building was built nearby in Tilimäki. The Riihitie house loosely incorporates the basic principles of Functionalism. It is possible to visit the building, which now acts as an atmospheric home museum, during opening hours or by special arrangement. A variable selection of literature and gifts linked with Alvar Aalto is on sale at the Riihitie Museum shop.
Muuratsalo Experimental House
With his second wife Elissa (née Mäkinimi) Alvar Aalto designed a summer villa on the island of Muuratsalo near Säynätsälo. The villa, and the sauna and woodshed, which were completed a little later, are located on a beautiful rocky promontory on the shore of the northern part of Lake Päijänne. The villa became known as the ‘Experimental House’ because of the experiments Aalto conducted there on materials and construction. The boat Aalto designed for himself, Nemo propheta in Patria, can also be seen on the shore by the Experimental House. The house is open to the public during the summertime.
BOARD
PRESIDENT
Mikko Mansikka
VICE PRESIDENT
Marketta Mäkinen
Henrik Aalto
Mirkku Kullberg
Jarmo Laiho
Katariina Lassila
Tommi Lindh
Aino Niskanen
Markku Lahti reporting member
Ulla Kinnunen secretary
ALVAR AALTO ACADEMY / BOARD OF DIRECTORS
CHAIRMAN
Matti Rautiola
Johanna Aalto
Eric Adlercreutz
Pekka Korvenmaa
Esa Laaksonen reporting member
Ulla Kinnunen secretary
ALVAR AALTO MUSEUM / BOARD OF DIRECTORS
CHAIRMAN
Maarit Toivanen-Koivisto
VICE CHAIRMAN
Kalevi Olin
Toimi Jaatinen
Marketta Mäkinen
Aino Niskanen
Risto Raittila
Esa Laaksonen reporting member
Ulla Kinnunen secretary
RIIHITIE (Aalto's own house) ADMINISTRATION BOARD
CHAIRMAN
Matti Rautiola
Rauno Anttila
Hannu Penttilä
Markku Lahti secretary
Tiilimäki 20
FIN-00330 Helsinki
fax +358 (0)9 485 119
foundation (at) alvaraalto.fi
president of the board of management
Mikko Mansikka
director of the foundation
Markku Lahti
head of communications, Helsinki
Ulla Kinnunen
tel. +358 (0) 045 679 0920
information officer, Jyväskylä
Mirkka Vidgrén
tel. +358 (0)400 254 708