The Alvar Aalto Foundation implemented a management plan for the conservation of Paimio Sanatorium in 2015–2016 which received funding from the US Getty Foundation’s “Keeping it Modern” project. International co-operation has continued with projects that have received similar funding, and the Foundation’s architect Jonas Malmberg has been invited to join the working group that has been assembled to make a management plan for the conservation of a holiday resort on Lake Sevan in Armenia. The management plan for the building, which was designed by Gevorg Kochar and Mikael Mazmanyan and incorporates special features of Soviet Modernism, will be drawn up by local experts, architect Sarhat Petrosyan and art historian Ruben Arevshatya. 

The project is the first Armenian modern architecture site where the starting point of the renovation work has been the original building and the conservation of its character. The conservation management plan has set out the restoration principles for the building complex. The renovation of the hotel building (1935) and the renewed accommodation has been adapted to respect the layers that have been created during the previous decades. The nearly unchanged restaurant building (1965), will be treated differently, however, because the original construction elements in the public spaces and the finely patinated inner surfaces will be preserved. Those parts of the architectural plan that were not originally realized will not be built now either, and the façade of the house will be preserved as accurately as possible. The only changes will be in the kitchen and wet rooms, which will be updated. 

Jonas Malmberg has lectured in Yerevan on the restoration of Finnish modern architecture in a Finnish Association of Architects’ event and in a seminar on Soviet Modern. 

Link to the US Getty Foundation´s “Keeping it modern” project.

Link to the Conservation Management Plan of Paimio Sanatorium. 

News 19.9.2014, Alvar Aalto Foundation receives a generous grant to conserve Paimio Sanatorium.

More information:
Alvar Aalto Foundation
Architect Jonas Malmberg
Tel. +358 40 567 5600
jonas.malmberg@alvaraalto.fi