Alvar Aalto’s birthday and Finnish Architecture Day will be celebrated on Tuesday, 3 February 2015. Friends of architecture and design are in for a treat in Helsinki, as it is time for the fourth Finnish Architecture Day seminar, with the presentation of the prestigious Alvar Aalto Medal to an architect for outstanding achievement. In Jyväskylä, the Alvar Aalto Museum invites all architecture enthusiasts to a fascinating scale-model workshop.

The Architecture Day seminar, “Välitilat – the spaces in between “, to be held at Helsinki City Hall, is a free event with lectures, targeting all architecture and design enthusiasts. The seminar will include the announcement of the recipient of the 2015 Alvar Aalto Medal.

The medal, presented every three years, is awarded to an architect or architects’ office with outstanding merit in creative architecture. The medal is awarded for a career, not for one particular building. The recipient of the first medal was Alvar Aalto in 1967. The members of the jury to decide on the recipient of the medal in 2015 are the architects Simo Freese (Finland), Wessel de Jonge (the Netherlands), Rainer Mahlamäki (Finland) and Dorte Mandrup-Poulsen (Denmark).

The medal committee includes representatives from the Alvar Aalto Foundation, the Finnish Museum of Architecture, the city of Helsinki, the Finnish Society of Architecture, and the Finnish Association of Architects, SAFA.

In Jyväskylä, the day will be celebrated with a scale-model workshop, to be held at the Alvar Aalto Museum. The open workshop provides all participants with an opportunity to build their very own dream house, school or library. Participants can draw inspiration from the exhibition “Finnish Architecture Biennial Review 2014”, currently on display in the Alvar Aalto Museum Gallery.

In honour of Aalto’s birthday, admission to the Alvar Aalto Museum will be free.

HELSINKI
Finnish Architecture Day seminar on Tuesday 3 February 2015, from 1 pm to 6 pm
Banquet hall of the Helsinki City Hall, Pohjoisesplanadi 11–13, 00100 Helsinki

JYVÄSKYLÄ
Scale-model workshop on Tuesday 3 February, from 11 am to 3 pm (run on a non-stop basis)
Alvar Aalto Museum, Alvar Aallon katu 7, 40600 Jyväskylä
www.alvaraalto.fi

More information:
Educational curator Mirkka Vidgren
mirkka.vidgren(at)alvaraalto.fi
tel. +358 400 254 708