Architecture and design are being celebrated very visibly in 2017. The Alvar Aalto Foundation’s programme includes topical discussion events on architecture and design, plus some fascinating exhibitions. Get a first taste of the Alvar Aalto Foundation’s programme below.

ALVAR AALTO MUSEUM EXHIBITION PICKS

Children’s Scale
February 10–May 21, 2017, Alvar Aalto Museum Gallery, Jyväskylä
The Children’s Scale collection exhibition produced by the Alvar Aalto Museum will show furnishings and furniture designed by Aino Aalto and Artek. Viewers will, for the first time ever, get to take a look at Aino’s artful interior and architectural designs, including for daycare centres and child-health centres. Children’s Scale is the Alvar Aalto Museum’s satellite show for the joint exhibition Modern Life! at HAM in Helsinki. The exhibition is part of the official Finland 100 centenary programme.

Modern Life!
March 3–July 30, 2017, HAM – Helsinki Art Museum
The Alvar Aalto Museum, Museum of Finnish Architecture, Design Museum, HAM – Helsinki Art Museum and the Finnish Museum of Photography are celebrating the centenary of Finnish Independence in 2017 with a joint exhibition project. Modern Life! will show snapshots of Finnish modernism and its achievements in Finland and internationally in the period 1917–1968. The exhibition will take a look at the handiwork of Alvar and Aino Aalto, Emmi Fock, Greta Hällfors-Sipilä, Vilho Setälä, Tapio Wirkkala, Kaj Franck, Eliel Saarinen, Vuokko Nurmesniemi and others. The exhibition is part of the official Finland 100 centenary programme.

Schildt & Aalto
June 2–September 16, 2017, Alvar Aalto Museum Gallery, Jyväskylä
The Schildt & Aalto exhibition produced by the Alvar Aalto Museum explores the dialogue and collaboration between Alvar Aalto and Göran Schildt. The exhibition will, for instance, feature the Aalto-designed Villa Skeppet, and reveal Schildt’s talents as a recorder of Aalto’s intellectual heritage. The exhibition is being mounted in collaboration with the Christine and Göran Schildt Foundation, and celebrates both the centenary of Finnish independence and Göran Schildt’s hundredth birthday.

Alvar Aalto – Art And The Modern Form
May 11–September 24, 2017, Ateneum, Helsinki
A retrospective touring exhibition produced by the Vitra Design Museum and Alvar Aalto Museum is to arrive at the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki. Alvar Aalto – Art And The Modern Form will reveal new aspects of the work of Finland’s internationally best-known architect and designer. At the Ateneum the exhibition will be supplemented with works by Aalto’s closest artist friends, among them Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Fernand Léger and László Moholy-Nagy.

ALVAR AALTO ACADEMY EVENT PICKS

3^rd Alvar Aalto Researchers Network Seminar – Why Aalto?
June 9–10, 2017, Jyväskylä and Säynätsalo
Why Aalto? is an international seminar centred on Alvar Aalto research, and addresses the challenges and potentials involved in Aalto’s thinking and architecture as seen from the viewpoint of current social changes. Apart from the seminar, the event includes a workshop at Säynätsalo Town Hall on June 7–8, 2017, where participants will conjecture on how new uses for buildings, changes in the environment, and developing construction-trade technologies create a need to re-assess, for instance, questions of building protection and maintenance. The workshop will take Säynätsalo Town Hall as a case study.

Alvar Aalto Week 2017 Seinäjoki &
The 5th International Alvar Aalto Meeting on Modern Architecture
– Technology and Humanism
September 13–17, 2017, Seinäjoki
This is a wide-ranging, interactive event with the focus on architecture, and offers interesting content both for local city dwellers and students and professionals in the field. Apart from the architecture Meeting, the programme for Alvar Aalto Week also includes public events and workshops open to all comers. The Meeting takes a look at new opportunities in emerging construction technology, and their impact on human wellbeing.

Further information:
Communications Officer Annukka Pakarinen, annukka.pakarinen(at)alvaraalto.fi, +358 (0)50 381 0143