ON LIGHT IN AALTO BUILDINGS

Interpretations about the use of daylight in Aalto’s buildings can be anachronistic in at least two ways. The first one is looking Aalto from the “state-of-the-art” understanding of lighting design, without historical perspective. The second one is suggesting historical influences in a too straightforward manner. In both cases, the development of the solutions should be understood better. My analysis begins from the rooflights of a single building and proceeds towards opposite directions: backwards to the years of early modernism, and forwards to the major works of the 1950s. My purpose is to demonstrate, how strong link there was between architectural forms, problems of illumination, spatial principles and
technological influences. During the decades, these questions created integrity within Aalto’s production. When interpreting Aalto’s window motifs, their strong internal lines of development should be taken into account.

Markku Norvasuo