The Studio was a centre of design where the office’s architects devised numerous Aalto buildings and their interiors over the decades. People from several countries worked there, making it an innovative, international meeting place for ideas whose influence can still be seen in modern design and architecture today, both in Finland and internationally.

The white-rendered, enclosed, wall-like mass of the building conceals a courtyard garden shaped like an amphitheatre. Office staff could sit on the amphitheatre’s slate steps, listen to lectures, or watch slide shows projected onto the white wall. The building’s principal space is the curving studio with its view onto the courtyard. Horizontal battens fixed to its high walls allowed drawings to be displayed. The rear wall is covered with climbing plants reaching up to the high-level windows, and prototype light fittings designed by Alvar Aalto were mounted on the wall. In 1962–1963 the building was extended with the construction of a staff dining room, the ‘Taverna’, in the courtyard behind the high brick wall, and with an office above it.

The windows, which have various shapes, allow natural light into the interior, augmented by carefully selected Aalto light fittings. The movable and fixed furnishings include furniture designed specifically for the building to support its functions, such as drawers for storing and archiving drawings. These are complemented by serial-produced Aalto furniture.

The Studio’s interior materials, such as the linoleum floors, plus most of the furniture, are original. The site as a whole has been kept as intact as possible.

Alvar Aalto ran the office until his death in 1976. The office then continued under the leadership of Elissa Aalto until 1994. The building came into the custodianship of the Alvar Aalto Foundation in 1984 and today houses the Alvar Aalto Foundation’s staff.