The Extraordinarily Ordinary – Central Finland’s Modern Building Heritage exhibition in the Alvar Aalto Museum Gallery presents an overview of Central Finland’s modern building heritage from the post-war period up to the present day, from the 1940s to the 2000s. On display are the first high-rise apartment blocks in village centres, standardized houses surrounded by leafy landscapes, co-educational schools of the new era, parish centres and shopping malls, which use the language of architecture to speak of the development of the Finnish welfare state.

The exhibition is chronologically divided into the years of post-war housing and reconstruction in the 1940s and ‘50s, decades of public construction and apartment planning for the social transformation of the 1960s and ‘70s, and the economic prosperity and recession of the 1980s and 90s. Finally, the exhibition provides a glimpse into the present, which emphasizes the era of individual expression, and also an increasingly ecological way of thinking.

The exhibition makes use of material gathered during the Museum of Central Finland’s inventory of the modern building heritage made in 2012–2014. All the municipalities in Central Finland have been involved in the project. “The inventory of the modern building heritage has been regionally pioneering and exemplary, also nationwide. The project has been supported by the National Board of Antiquities’ Built Welfare project”, says Päivi Andersson, a researcher at the Museum of Central Finland. Buildings created by the state for various societal purposes, namely buildings linked to the creation of the Finnish welfare state, are well represented In the inventory, as well as the exhibited objects.

The exhibition has been jointly created by two museums: researcher Saija Silen from the Museum of Central Finland has created the text, and photographer Maija Holma of the Alvar Aalto Museum has been responsible for the visual expression.

 

 

 

For more information, please contact:  
Mirkka Vidgrén, Communications
Alvar Aalto Foundation
Tel. +358 40  168 5142
mirkka.vidgren@alvaraalto.fi

The extraordinarily ordinary – The modern building heritage in Central Finland
16.3.–27.5.2018
Alvar Aalto Museum Gallery
Alvar Aallon katu 7, Jyväskylä, Finland
Open Tues-Sun at 11–18