Alvar Aalto, one of the top names in modern architecture, engages researchers across traditional subject boundaries all over the world. Art historians, architects, sociologists and others including engineers and conservators are producing valuable new Aalto-related research. Now, the Alvar Aalto Museum has opened up new avenues for researchers’ work.

Helsinki University of Technology main building, current Aalto University, Schools of Science Technology, main building. Otaniemi, Espoo. Drawings collection / Alvar Aalto Museum.

“Individual researchers have traditionally stayed in close contact with the Alvar Aalto Museum. But they have not necessarily known about each other’s research projects. We wanted to rectify this situation, and to create new tools for the research community,” says Director Susanna Pettersson.

The latest innovation is the Alvar Aalto Museum’s new online journal for scholarly articles, launched in February. The first issue of the journal contains the papers from the 2012 international Alvar Aalto Researchers’ Network seminar. This multidisciplinary seminar was arranged in collaboration with Aalto University, Tampere University of Technology and the City of Seinäjoki.

The articles reveal the current scope of Aalto research both geographically and methodologically. The subjects of the articles range from the construction history of the Paimio Sanatorium building to finds made in foreign photograph archives.
The online journal crucially improves the accessibility of international Aalto research by making new material freely available around the world and by inspiring new ways of viewing Aalto’s heritage.

The Aalto Museum has also stimulated better networking among Aalto researchers by opening a dedicated Facebook group for them. The Museum will continue to develop services for the research community. The aim is to bring researchers into continual interaction with the Museum.

www.alvaraaltoresearch.fi

Further information:

Director, Adjunct Professor Susanna Pettersson, susanna.pettersson@alvaraalto.fi, tel. +358 40 7360 699,
Alvar Aalto Foundation/ Alvar Aalto Museum

Producer Tomi Summanen, tomi.summanen@alvaraalto.fi, tel. +358 44 555 7337,
Alvar Aalto Museum