Souvenirs from Italy – Mediterranean influences in Alvar Aalto’s Rautatalo Office Building

This small exhibition produced by the Alvar Aalto Foundation presents the architecture of the Rautatalo building completed on Helsinki’s Keskuskatu Street in 1955. It also illuminates Alvar Aalto’s more private side, such as his family life and numerous journeys to the Mediterranean.

From his travels Aalto brought back influences on his architecture, which are evident in the open, piazza-like Marmoripiha Courtyard framed by the Rautatalo’s office spaces and its interior walls clad in Carrara marble and travertine. In Aalto’s designs this Italian-style piazza was to be open to city dwellers, a space filled with the hum of conversation and people meeting that gets natural light from skylights.

The exhibition in the Marmoripiha Courtyard consists of pictorial material from Aalto’s trips, with printed information in Finnish, Swedish and English.