Article The Making of Muuratsalo´s Materpiece
Author Joris Fach
In BuildingDesigningThinking
Page 11-18
Publisher Alvar Aalto Academy/Alvar Aalto Foundation
Design Päivi Viita, Vitamiini Sisko Honkala
Editorial/Text Kari Jormakka, Esa Laaksonen
Print Multiprint Oy
Copyright Alvar Aalto Academy
The Making of Muuratsalo´s Materpiece
"Architecture cannot flourish in consumer cultures where image takes precedence over substance, instant appeal over lasting value. The authenticity of everything Aalto designed — difficult to define, but nonetheless unmistakable — offers a compelling critique of many of today‘s designer-buildings, whose fragile perfection is often shattered by use. For architects bewildered by the heady climate of competing styles, that ‚wholesome Nordic sanity‘ which was so greatly admired during Aalto‘s lifetime still provides a welcome reminder of the fundamentals of their art. "₁
In this quote Richard Weston touches upon most points that underpin the popular understanding of Alvar Aalto‘s work as something lasting, authentic, Nordic, and even sane in times of misrouted modernism. Supporting this understanding there is Aalto‘s legendary notion of silence, sustained by both the architect‘s refusal to intellectualize his work and the impenetrable logic of his designs which seems to be issued by intuition alone. Weston sensed this ineffability precisely when describing Aalto‘s authenticity as something "...difficult to define, but nonetheless unmistakable... "₂
This paper examines the construction of such interpretations, focusing in particular on the making of the ‚authentic‘ image of the Experimental House and its supposedly constituting elements such as location, function, Finnishness, and, after all, the intuitive playfulness of its design. For this purpose Theodor Adorno‘s concept of the 'jargon of authenticity' is deployed. It guides us through the complex of valorizing elements of the Experimental House, the writings and images connected with it, and especially the execution of its canonic brick facade. Originally applied to modern language, Adorno‘s jargon of authenticity hereby terms the authenticating mechanisms at play in Aalto‘s architecture and pinpoints Weston‘s findings - substance, authenticity, wholesomeness-to telling effect.
Experiment
In his book, Jargon der Eigentlichkeit (Jargon of Authenticity) Theodor W. Adorno outlined the inherent operational method of a persuasive system of language that instilled exactly what Aalto came to be associated with: authenticity. The jargon of authenticity uses disorganization as a principle of organization and decomposes language into individual words that, when reassembled as a jargon, carry a specific connotation they did not communicate beforehand. Adorno generally conceptualized this phenomenon as an effect perceived by the senses, much like Aalto had characterized, to name just one example, the atmosphere of his World‘s Fair Pavilion in New York fifteen years earlier.₃
So, how serious can a house be taken that deliberately claims to be an experiment? Despite its preposition, the Experimental House in Muuratsalo is certainly one of Aalto‘s projects most often described with the epithet 'authentic', albeit in radically different interpretive contexts. It has been understood as a counterpoint to the Finnish landscape,₄ as a campsite or ruin₅, as an archetypal quote of the Roman courtyard house₆, a Greek temple₇ and as a sheltering gesture, like a Mediterranean monastery on a cliff.₈ The courtyard facade has been frequently linked to a variety of precedents, such as to the brickwork by Frank Lloyd Wright and Willem Dudok₉, to modern painting and the De Stijl movement₁₀, or to Aulis Blomstedt‘s modular experiments.₁₁ What makes this experimental building such an effective sounding board for interpretations?
Site
Built on an island in the North of lake Päijänne the house presents a perfect heterotopia in Foucault‘s sense. Its setting in a wild forest, high upon a large rock that overlooks the curvy shores of a sheerly endless system of lakes fully exposes the architecture to the regime of Finnish nature. As a contestation of its very environment₁₂ it is stereotypically Finnish, so much so that Aalto equipped it with one of his few explicit manifestoes. Published in the Finnish magazine Arkkitehti ₁₃ the project‘s destiny was defined as to find a "specific character of architectural detail that our northern climate requires. "₁₄ Even though some posthumous critics were disillusioned and found that "essays such as the presentation of the Experimental House at Muuratsalo (1953) are less interesting, being the rather pragmatic relation of facts and description that lock both commentary and feeling..."₁₅ many contemporaries found Aalto‘s architectural laboratory highly inspiring.
Already the way in which one accessed Muuratsalo was felt to be remarkable. As Aalto put it, the island was approached on: "...a small floating island where one could settle comfortably and enjoy the peacefulness of the lake in the company of guests."₁₆ This small floating island, Aalto‘s self-designed boat, soon became inseparable from the house and greatly sustained its image as a far-away retreat by emphasizing the ritual of an almost spiritual passage. However, equipped with an American motor, a Danish screw and built in a completely non-vernacular and nautically questionable way the vehicle was a rather strange duck on lake Päijänne. Also its name was special, since, unlike usual boats, it did not carry the name of a place or person, but, like the so called Experimental House itself, boasted a conceptual phrase on its bow — ‚Nemo propheta in patria‘ — a choice that invites much excitement and speculation until today. Whatever the Latin phrase really stands for (why Latin, not Finnish?) and whatever it suggests regarding the boat, the house, or the architect himself, the effect of such a remarkable phrase in such a remarkable position must have been aware to a sensitive mind like Aalto‘s. Weston called the Experimental House Aalto‘s "most personal and private meditation on the theme of nature and culture"₁₇. While this assessment may be largely true, it is incomplete. Siting and setting of the Experimental House were so carefully arranged that the Experimental House quickly became more than an exclusively private summer home. As soon as the physical construction took shape its medial image appeared in various publications — Alvar Aalto‘s Experimental House, Muuratsalo, 1953, Robert Winkler‘s Das Haus des Architekten, 1955, Erik Krakström‘s Pohjoismaista Arkkitehtuuria, 195518, even Sigfried Giedion‘s Space, Time and Architecture, 1964 mentioned it in passing. This publicized resonance firmly grounded the project on both the rocks of a Finish island and on the medial attention of a wider architectural audience.
Function
As Roland Barthes has suggested with reference to the Eiffel Tower, the building‘s lack of a precisely defined function may be another moment inviting interpretation.₁₉ The Sunila Pulp mill had to produce, the Pairnio Sanatorium had to heal, the Finnish pavilions had to exhibit, Villa Mairea had to comfort and to represent, but the Experimental house was not subjected to any specified 'must'. The freedom Aalto enjoyed while being his own client imbued his Experimental House with a minimum of actual function only, which figured — in the same way that Le Corbusier built his experimental Le Cabanon in Cap Martin in 1951 as a minimalist retreat for intellectual contemplation — in the rather abstract idea of a place for twosomeness. While several photographs of Elissa and Alvar relaxing in the courtyard bear witness to the materialization of this idea₂₀, other pictures and events — as will be shown in the following reveal the alternation of the house between a place of intimacy and an exceptional stage. Among other functions the house was used as a studio. Elissa and Alvar would work in the living room, as their drafting tables suggest, but arguably more striking are records of Aalto painting in the courtyard. The architect here used his own building as an easel, more precisely a slightly set back square in the facade that is covered with coloured tiles, making it, in a double sense, the facade‘s artistic heart. On other occasions the courtyard served as a background for a casually dressed Aalto making a fire, which, together with the lake in the background, presents the rooted Fin in concentrated engagement with the elements. ₂₁ Sometimes the house also welcomed guests. For these occasions it had a specific guests‘ tract in the outbuildings. Shortly after its completion it saw Silva and Werner Moser in 1953, Hans Hofmann and 30 Students in 1956, Carola and Sigfried Giedion in 1962₂₂, to name just some international visitors. When Aalto received guests in old trousers the dress not only underlined the casualness of the summer house, but — since he had worn them on the Paris world fair and had no hesitation to proudly point this out - Aalto himself actively contributed to his ambiguous image of a rooted modernist. As he put it himself in retrospect of his career: "...l am international - but in a different way than the person for whom internationalism is the sole correct approach. That is mere empty talk, if one lacks what forms the background: rootedness in a local situation." While the stays of the Aalto couple and their friends were always temporary (rarely exceeding one month), the house‘s function was never fixed or limited. Muuratsalo thus was as much a space of recreation as it became an instrument of representation. Despite its undefined (and experimental) function its authentic image quickly became permanent and the building readily provided all necessary accessories.
Images
The photographer Eino Mäkinen, a product designer, employee and friend of Aalto who had already arranged the landscape photographs in the Finnish Pavilion in New York and who had taken many canonic pictures of Aalto‘s projects since, also recorded the Experimental House. The photographs are most certainly shot for publication purposes, as their perspectives are carefully chosen and the scenes figure without people. What is more, each picture is reduced to a clearly identifiable theme.
As constructed as they may be, the photographs, in turn, also construct the Finnish landscape. One view from the living room shows the perspectival frames of the courtyard walls, the pine trees, and further back two landmasses protruding into the lake from left and right (1)₂₃, embedding the shelter in the landscape of central Finland. Another photograph shows the reverse view, picturing wild rocks, blueberry bushes and trees in the foreground, then the ordering white walls that protect the paved courtyard and the fire that burns in its center and finally the orthogonally fragmented facade with door and window, highlighting the gradual transition from nature to culture (2)₂₄ . A further photograph underlines the idea of the courtyard as a roofless room. It features two deckchairs and extends the perspective through the courtyard‘s window (3)₂₅, as if one was looking out, instead of looking in. Detailed shots (4)₂₆ shift the focus on Aalto‘s hypersensitivity to tactile experiences which return us to architectural detail, as Kenneth Frampton later presumed.₂₇ The perspectives of the guest wing (5/6/7)₂₈ finally emphasize the outbuildings as the much quoted tai129 of the house that is more and more freely formed and finally vanishes into the woods.
Mäkinen also took numerous portraits of Aalto himself that were staged with equal care and bring to mind all the salient characteristics of the organic genius.₃₀ In one series Aalto sits prosaically at his desk in a non-metropolitan dress, with plans on the table, the obligatory pen in his hand, a curvilinear jig most visibly in the forefront, the pipe of the contemplative smoker right next to it, and through the opened curtains his trademark, the Finnish nature, peers in. It is in this instance that we can truly speak of a visual jargon of authenticity that unfolds.
Facade
In 1944 Alvar Aalto wrote: "For myself I want to point out that I am not particularly interested in the design of private houses except where there is an opportunity for experiment, which who knows, may later be of some use in creating large groups of buildings and the community."₃₁
However, the noble aims that Aalto connected with the designs of villas seldom found reflection in the small houses that Aalto designed for the little man. The modular AA houses, for example, were erected in the simplest construction thinkable and made entirely from wood. The experimental foundations of Muuratsalo — although never applied elsewhere — may still be explained by a humanist search for efficient construction techniques, but the brick experiments come much closer to an aesthetic, artistic, and eventually well publishable exercise. The manifesto of Muuratsalo confirms this view, as it describes the brick facade as a test of visual effects and the aging of the bricks. It describes the house as the chance to play purely for pleasure‘s sake. Even though
Aalto identified play very much in Yrjö Hirn‘s sense - which imbues it with a rather serious undertone - a closer look at the facade stretches even Hirn‘s stringent notion of play, at least, to an extreme.
Kari Jormakka explained the ostensibly free-form plan of the House of Culture in Helsinki and the section of the church Riola di Vergato near Bologna as geometric constructions.₃₂ It is possible to scrutinize the Experimental House in similar terms. The proportions of the main facade and the location of the entrance door and the living room window are particularly telling, just as the organization of the more than 50 brick patches seems to be based on classic geometric construction. An early elevation (11) shows the facade with an inscribed square, whose right side marks the hinge-line of the door. The diagonal rising from the lower corner of the higher facade edge thereby defines the tip of the large window, while the horizontal center line of the square reflects in the brick pattern. Another version (12) defines the overall width with two abutting squares, both of which adhere to the height of their respective corners. Their abutting sides define the hinge line of the door. A circular section drawn from the right tip of the large square with a vanishing point at the intersection of roof and floor line, defines the other edge of the door. The center lines of the squares — the large one horizontally, the small one vertically — reflect in the organization of brick patches (13). While the larger geometric inscriptions of squares and golden rectangles are unmistakable one should not overrate the smaller fragments of these drawings since their sketchy imprecision may leave room to interpretation that was not initially intended.
A more detailed facade drawing finally lends itself to a more detailed scrutiny. The facade proportions (14) are based on a golden rectangle, whose square adheres to the height by the facade‘s higher edge, while the lower edge emerges from the tip of the golden rectangle‘s circular section. Another golden rectangle, based on the height of the lower edge, defines the location of the entrance door, which is positioned between the square‘s inner edge and its circular section. The door is finally centered in the facade (15), while its height is half the height of the smaller golden rectangle. Simultaneously many of the demarcation lines between brick patches seem to derive from an evolution of golden rectangles multiplied by the square-root of 2, that originate from the patch in which Aalto assembled a collection of colored tiles (16).₃₃ One may further suggest that the center line of the door initiates a rhythm of verticals spaced by circular segments that deploy the vanishing point of the floor and the roof line (17).
The floor of the courtyard seems to be constructed in similar terms. Straight lines that extend from point of geometric interest like corners and edges via a corner of the square fire pit in the centre surprisingly often hit other points of geometric interest at their other ends, constructing a web of geometric relations. The geometric structure of the Experimental House‘s brick facade is obviously highly complex and its fragmentation cannot be explained by geometry alone, but — as Jormakka, Gargus and Graf already suggested with reference to other Aalto projects — „the geometric regularities are too many and too precise to be accidental results of an intuitive process.“₃₄ Aalto thus paired Hirn‘s notion of play with a more Aaltoesque rationale of the land surveyor. Although not fully re-constructible, an advanced level of rationale seems consistent in all three facade drawings. Consciously or unconsciously, the brick facade‘s complexity thus airs an aura of intuition and play, even though its actual origins are more restrained than the result suggests. Like Mäkinen‘s photographs of the Experimental House, the brick patches taken as a whole enable an array of associations that their individual parts could not have triggered by themselves. Such correlated elements - (too) easily graspable photographs and a (too) overwhelming facade - are perceived not as single impressions, but, indeed, as a concerted jargon.
Authenticity
Yet, Adorno‘s formulation of a jargon of authenticity was basically the reaction to the systematic discourse on authenticity that had
developed in the phenomenological-existentialist tradition. In Sein und Zeit Heidegger approached the renewal of thinking through the ideal of the archaic.₃₅ Simultaneously, Heidegger‘s preference for countrymen and the provincial, as opposed to the urban, is explained by their closer proximity to the 'things themselves', allowing them a more open gaze on the unveiling of the thing‘s essentiality. Authenticity thus emerged through utter subjectivity, just like the century old farm houses of the black forest, in which the act of building still equaled the act of dwelling without discrepancy.₃₆ Heidegger‘s own black forest weekend house in which Sein und Zeit was written — in dimensions roughly the size of Muuratsalo‘s courtyard — serves as another example of unquestioned architectural essence. The Aalto‘s summer home in Muuratsalo was quite different. It was neither an old, ever present structure, nor was it based on common vernacular building techniques. In fact, it contrasted Heidegger‘s idea of subjectivity from its outset, since, after all, the Experimental House was a highly analytical proclamation. Additionally Aalto himself was not unconditionally Finnish. He certainly held his country dear, but simultaneously called it semi-barbaric₃₇, complained about its fly infested forests₃₈, and loved Finnish winters because one could spend them elsewhere₃₉. The Muuratsalo project, I would argue, however holds a similar relation with its environments. Rather than being the essence of Finnishness it is ambivalent about its own roots, especially with traits uncommon in traditional Finnish summer homes like the courtyard typology, its introversion, the expressive butterfly roof and the facade layout. In turn, elements like the foundation of untreated wood, columns arranged according to exposed rock formations, and a sauna shaped by the natural tapering of logs at first sight allude to the essential in Heidegger‘s terms. In summary, however, these elements create an architectural dialect that lends itself to distinctly authentic interpretations without much further action, just as their creator, Alvar Aalto, without wrongdoing, did himself. When, in 1972, Göran Schildt asked: "Do you think you‘ve been able to add something specifically Finnish to international architecture, themes rooted in our conditions?" Aalto responded: "l have nothing against that interpretation."₄₀
Conclusion
The above quote proves how well Aalto tuned his mediatized image. Similarly, Aalto‘s authenticity is, unlike Weston claims, not so difficult to define. Just as any other protagonist of the modern movement, Aalto was born into a world increasingly shaped by the overwhelming rise of mass-media. Together with an accelerating consumer culture this inevitably effected Aalto‘s architecture, but even more so its presentation. Returning to Weston‘s introductory quote, the images of the Experimental House are thus just as present as its substance, its instant appeal just as impressive as its lasting value. It remains unquestioned that Aalto took a deep interest in his designs, his country, and the little man, but it must also be said, that he masterly instrumentalized the arrangement and presentation of his work, in this case the Experimental House in Muuratsalo, in order to sustain the niche he had come to occupy in the field of modern architecture. The project‘s heterotopian setting, its indistinct function, the temporary occupation, its clear-cut publication images, and a main facade that was as iconic as its construction was intangible makes an inviting surface for the projection of mystic and authenticating qualities. As Adorno put it: "The words become terms of the jargon only through the constellation that they negate, through each one‘s gesture of uniqueness."₄₁ It is in this sense that the individual fragments of the architectural language of Aalto‘s Experimental House become abbreviated signals of a newly installed truth that rely as much on their physical manifestation as they rely on a media-made authenticity.
1 Weston, Richard, Alvar Aalto -- an appreciation, written for Virtual Finland, http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAlD=26966, accessed on 2nd February 2008.
2 Weston, Richard, Alvar Aalto an appreciation, written for Virtual Finland, http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAlD=26966, accessed on 2nd February 2008.
3 Alvar Aalto, Maailmannåyttelyt: New York Worlds Fair. The Golden Gate Exhibition [World Exhibitions: New York's Worlds Fair. The Golden Gate Exhibition], Arkkitehti 8, 1939, p. 113. in: Göran Schildt, ed., Alvar Aalto in His Own Words, Rizzoli, New York, 1998, p. 121.
4 Hewitt, Mark, The Imaginary Mountain: the Significance of Contour in A/var Aa/to's Sketches, Perspecta, 1989, p. 171.
5 Markku Lahti, Alvar Aa/to and the Beauty of the House, in: Winfried Nerdinger, ed., Toward a Human Modernism, Prestel, Munich, London New York, 1999, p. 57.
6 Alvar Aalto, Experimental House, Muuratsalo, Arkkitehti 9-10, 1953, in: Göran Schildt, ed., Alvar Aalto, Sketches, trans. Stuart Wrede, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., 1978.
7 Markku Lahti, Alvar Aalto and the Beauty of the House, in: Winfried Nerdinger, ed., Toward a Human Modernism, Prestel, Munich, London, New York, 1999, p. 57.
8Menin, Sarah and Samuel Flora, Nature and Space. Aalto and Le Corbusier, Routledge, London, New York, 2003, p 99.
9 Quantrill, Malcolm, Finnish Architecture and the Modernist Tradition, Taylor & Francis, London, 1995, p. 111.
10 Quantrill, Malcolm, Finnish Architecture and the Modernist Tradition, Taylor & Francis, London, 1995, p. 111.
11 Quantrill, Malcolm, Finnish Architecture and the Modernist Tradition, Taylor & Francis, London, 1995, p. 111.
12 Michel Foucault, Of other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias, Lotus International, 48/49, 1985/86 (1 967), p. 9-17.
13 Alvar Aalto, Experimental House, Muuratsalo, Arkkitehti 9—10, 1953, in: Göran Schildt, ed., Alvar Aalto. Sketches, trans. Stuart Wrede, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., 1978.
14 Alvar Aalto, Experimental House, Muuratsalo, Arkkitehti 9—10, 1953, in: Göran Schildt, ed., Alvar Aalto. Sketches, trans. Stuart Wrede, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass., 1978.
15 Marc Treib, Review of: Alvar Aalto: The early years, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 1987, p. 90
16 Karl Fleig, ALvar Aalto, Vol. III Verlag für Architektur, Artemis, Zürich, 1978, p.15
17 Richard Weston, Alvar Aalto, Phaidon Press, London, New York, 1995, p.114
18 Erik Krakström, Pohjoismaista Arkkitehtuuria, 1950-1954, Nordic Building Congress, Helsinki, 1955
19 Roland Barthes, The EIffel Tower and other Mythologies, trans. Richard Howard, Hill & Wang, New York, 1979, p.4
20 Img: Alvar and Elissa Aalto in the courtyard, with an unidentified freind, Heikki Havas, in: Juhani Pallasma, ed., Tomoko Sato, ed., Alvar Aalto through the eyes of Shigeru Ban Black Dog Publishing, London 2007, p.168
21 Img. 1-102
22 Teppo Jokinen ed., Bruna Maurer ed., Der Magus des Nordens. Alvar Aalto und die Schweiz, gta Verlag, Zürich, 1998, p.197-199
23 Img. 100287
24 Img. 100291
25 Img. 100297
26 Img. 100318
27 Kenneth Frampton, Intimations of Tactility. Excerpts from a Fragmentary Polemic, in Heaven and Earth. Anniversary Issue to honor Karsten Herries
28 Img. 100332, 100333, 100383
29 Richard Weston, Alvar Aalto, Phaidon Press, London, New York, 1995, p.114
30 Joris Jakob Fach, Aalto Authenticated, in: Yanel de Angel Salas, ed., (Dis)courses. Essays on Architecture History and Theory, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, Mass., 2007, p. 41
31 "Alvar Aalto: suurten mittojen arkkitehti" (Alvar Aalto: Architect of Grand Proportions), Seura, 18. June 1944, in: Markhu Lahti, Alvar Aalto and the Beauty of the House, in: Winfried Nerdinger, ed., Alvar Aalto. Toward a Human Modernism, Prestel, Munich/London/New York, 1999, p.49
32 Jormakka, Gargus, Graf, The Use and Abuse of Paper, Essays on Alvar Aalto, Datutop 20, Tampere University of Technology, 1999
33 Jormakka, Gargus, Graf, The Use and Abuse of Paper, Essays on Alvar Aalto, Datutop 20, Tampere University of Technology, 1999
34 Jormakka, Gargus, Graf, The Use and Abuse of Paper, Essays on Alvar Aalto, Datutop 20, Tampere University of Technology, 1999
35 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, M. Nimeyer, Halle, 1929.
36 Martin Heidegger, Man and Space, trans. Albert Hofstadter in: Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, Harper & Row, New York, 1975.
37 Alvar Aalto during a lecture in Munich, 1957, in: Karl Fleig, ed., Alvar Aalto: 1963-1970, Praeger, New York, 1971, p.6
38 Alvar Aalto, Undated letter to Ellen and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, ca. 1931, Alvar Aalto Foundation, Helsinki.
39 Malcom Quantrill, Alvar Aalto. A Critical Study, Schocken Books, New York, 1983, p.4.
40 Göran Schildt, Alvar Aalto In His Own Words, Rizzoli, New York, 1998, p.275
41 Theodor W. Adorno, Jargon of Authenticity, trans. K. Tarnowski, F. Will, Northwestern Univeristy Press, Evanston, 1973, p.7
Article The Making of Muuratsalo´s Materpiece
Author Joris Fach
In BuildingDesigningThinking
Seiten 11-18
Publisher Alvar Aalto Academy/Alvar Aalto Foundation
Design Päivi Viita, Vitamiini Sisko Honkala
Editor/Text Kari Jormakka, Esa Laaksonen
Print Multiprint Oy
Copyright Alvar Aalto Academy
The Making of Muuratsalo´s Materpiece
"Architecture cannot flourish in consumer cultures where image takes precedence over substance, instant appeal over lasting value. The authenticity of everything Aalto designed — difficult to define, but nonetheless unmistakable — offers a compelling critique of many of today‘s designer-buildings, whose fragile perfection is often shattered by use. For architects bewildered by the heady climate of competing styles, that ‚wholesome Nordic sanity‘ which was so greatly admired during Aalto‘s lifetime still provides a welcome reminder of the fundamentals of their art. "₁
In this quote Richard Weston touches upon most points that underpin the popular understanding of Alvar Aalto‘s work as something lasting, authentic, Nordic, and even sane in times of misrouted modernism. Supporting this understanding there is Aalto‘s legendary notion of silence, sustained by both the architect‘s refusal to intellectualize his work and the impenetrable logic of his designs which seems to be issued by intuition alone. Weston sensed this ineffability precisely when describing Aalto‘s authenticity as something "...difficult to define, but nonetheless unmistakable... "₂
This paper examines the construction of such interpretations, focusing in particular on the making of the ‚authentic‘ image of the Experimental House and its supposedly constituting elements such as location, function, Finnishness, and, after all, the intuitive playfulness of its design. For this purpose Theodor Adorno‘s concept of the 'jargon of authenticity' is deployed. It guides us through the complex of valorizing elements of the Experimental House, the writings and images connected with it, and especially the execution of its canonic brick facade. Originally applied to modern language, Adorno‘s jargon of authenticity hereby terms the authenticating mechanisms at play in Aalto‘s architecture and pinpoints Weston‘s findings - substance, authenticity, wholesomeness-to telling effect.
Experiment
In his book, Jargon der Eigentlichkeit (Jargon of Authenticity) Theodor W. Adorno outlined the inherent operational method of a persuasive system of language that instilled exactly what Aalto came to be associated with: authenticity. The jargon of authenticity uses disorganization as a principle of organization and decomposes language into individual words that, when reassembled as a jargon, carry a specific connotation they did not communicate beforehand. Adorno generally conceptualized this phenomenon as an effect perceived by the senses, much like Aalto had characterized, to name just one example, the atmosphere of his World‘s Fair Pavilion in New York fifteen years earlier.₃
So, how serious can a house be taken that deliberately claims to be an experiment? Despite its preposition, the Experimental House in Muuratsalo is certainly one of Aalto‘s projects most often described with the epithet 'authentic', albeit in radically different interpretive contexts. It has been understood as a counterpoint to the Finnish landscape,₄ as a campsite or ruin₅, as an archetypal quote of the Roman courtyard house₆, a Greek temple₇ and as a sheltering gesture, like a Mediterranean monastery on a cliff.₈ The courtyard facade has been frequently linked to a variety of precedents, such as to the brickwork by Frank Lloyd Wright and Willem Dudok₉, to modern painting and the De Stijl movement₁₀, or to Aulis Blomstedt‘s modular experiments.₁₁ What makes this experimental building such an effective sounding board for interpretations?
Site
Built on an island in the North of lake Päijänne the house presents a perfect heterotopia in Foucault‘s sense. Its setting in a wild forest, high upon a large rock that overlooks the curvy shores of a sheerly endless system of lakes fully exposes the architecture to the regime of Finnish nature. As a contestation of its very environment₁₂ it is stereotypically Finnish, so much so that Aalto equipped it with one of his few explicit manifestoes. Published in the Finnish magazine Arkkitehti ₁₃ the project‘s destiny was defined as to find a "specific character of architectural detail that our northern climate requires. "₁₄ Even though some posthumous critics were disillusioned and found that "essays such as the presentation of the Experimental House at Muuratsalo (1953) are less interesting, being the rather pragmatic relation of facts and description that lock both commentary and feeling..."₁₅ many contemporaries found Aalto‘s architectural laboratory highly inspiring.
Already the way in which one accessed Muuratsalo was felt to be remarkable. As Aalto put it, the island was approached on: "...a small floating island where one could settle comfortably and enjoy the peacefulness of the lake in the company of guests."₁₆ This small floating island, Aalto‘s self-designed boat, soon became inseparable from the house and greatly sustained its image as a far-away retreat by emphasizing the ritual of an almost spiritual passage. However, equipped with an American motor, a Danish screw and built in a completely non-vernacular and nautically questionable way the vehicle was a rather strange duck on lake Päijänne. Also its name was special, since, unlike usual boats, it did not carry the name of a place or person, but, like the so called Experimental House itself, boasted a conceptual phrase on its bow — ‚Nemo propheta in patria‘ — a choice that invites much excitement and speculation until today. Whatever the Latin phrase really stands for (why Latin, not Finnish?) and whatever it suggests regarding the boat, the house, or the architect himself, the effect of such a remarkable phrase in such a remarkable position must have been aware to a sensitive mind like Aalto‘s. Weston called the Experimental House Aalto‘s "most personal and private meditation on the theme of nature and culture"₁₇. While this assessment may be largely true, it is incomplete. Siting and setting of the Experimental House were so carefully arranged that the Experimental House quickly became more than an exclusively private summer home. As soon as the physical construction took shape its medial image appeared in various publications — Alvar Aalto‘s Experimental House, Muuratsalo, 1953, Robert Winkler‘s Das Haus des Architekten, 1955, Erik Krakström‘s Pohjoismaista Arkkitehtuuria, 195518, even Sigfried Giedion‘s Space, Time and Architecture, 1964 mentioned it in passing. This publicized resonance firmly grounded the project on both the rocks of a Finish island and on the medial attention of a wider architectural audience.
Function
As Roland Barthes has suggested with reference to the Eiffel Tower, the building‘s lack of a precisely defined function may be another moment inviting interpretation.₁₉ The Sunila Pulp mill had to produce, the Pairnio Sanatorium had to heal, the Finnish pavilions had to exhibit, Villa Mairea had to comfort and to represent, but the Experimental house was not subjected to any specified 'must'. The freedom Aalto enjoyed while being his own client imbued his Experimental House with a minimum of actual function only, which figured — in the same way that Le Corbusier built his experimental Le Cabanon in Cap Martin in 1951 as a minimalist retreat for intellectual contemplation — in the rather abstract idea of a place for twosomeness. While several photographs of Elissa and Alvar relaxing in the courtyard bear witness to the materialization of this idea₂₀, other pictures and events — as will be shown in the following reveal the alternation of the house between a place of intimacy and an exceptional stage. Among other functions the house was used as a studio. Elissa and Alvar would work in the living room, as their drafting tables suggest, but arguably more striking are records of Aalto painting in the courtyard. The architect here used his own building as an easel, more precisely a slightly set back square in the facade that is covered with coloured tiles, making it, in a double sense, the facade‘s artistic heart. On other occasions the courtyard served as a background for a casually dressed Aalto making a fire, which, together with the lake in the background, presents the rooted Fin in concentrated engagement with the elements. ₂₁ Sometimes the house also welcomed guests. For these occasions it had a specific guests‘ tract in the outbuildings. Shortly after its completion it saw Silva and Werner Moser in 1953, Hans Hofmann and 30 Students in 1956, Carola and Sigfried Giedion in 1962₂₂, to name just some international visitors. When Aalto received guests in old trousers the dress not only underlined the casualness of the summer house, but — since he had worn them on the Paris world fair and had no hesitation to proudly point this out - Aalto himself actively contributed to his ambiguous image of a rooted modernist. As he put it himself in retrospect of his career: "...l am international - but in a different way than the person for whom internationalism is the sole correct approach. That is mere empty talk, if one lacks what forms the background: rootedness in a local situation." While the stays of the Aalto couple and their friends were always temporary (rarely exceeding one month), the house‘s function was never fixed or limited. Muuratsalo thus was as much a space of recreation as it became an instrument of representation. Despite its undefined (and experimental) function its authentic image quickly became permanent and the building readily provided all necessary accessories.
Images
The photographer Eino Mäkinen, a product designer, employee and friend of Aalto who had already arranged the landscape photographs in the Finnish Pavilion in New York and who had taken many canonic pictures of Aalto‘s projects since, also recorded the Experimental House. The photographs are most certainly shot for publication purposes, as their perspectives are carefully chosen and the scenes figure without people. What is more, each picture is reduced to a clearly identifiable theme.
As constructed as they may be, the photographs, in turn, also construct the Finnish landscape. One view from the living room shows the perspectival frames of the courtyard walls, the pine trees, and further back two landmasses protruding into the lake from left and right (1)₂₃, embedding the shelter in the landscape of central Finland. Another photograph shows the reverse view, picturing wild rocks, blueberry bushes and trees in the foreground, then the ordering white walls that protect the paved courtyard and the fire that burns in its center and finally the orthogonally fragmented facade with door and window, highlighting the gradual transition from nature to culture (2)₂₄ . A further photograph underlines the idea of the courtyard as a roofless room. It features two deckchairs and extends the perspective through the courtyard‘s window (3)₂₅, as if one was looking out, instead of looking in. Detailed shots (4)₂₆ shift the focus on Aalto‘s hypersensitivity to tactile experiences which return us to architectural detail, as Kenneth Frampton later presumed.₂₇ The perspectives of the guest wing (5/6/7)₂₈ finally emphasize the outbuildings as the much quoted tai129 of the house that is more and more freely formed and finally vanishes into the woods.
Mäkinen also took numerous portraits of Aalto himself that were staged with equal care and bring to mind all the salient characteristics of the organic genius.₃₀ In one series Aalto sits prosaically at his desk in a non-metropolitan dress, with plans on the table, the obligatory pen in his hand, a curvilinear jig most visibly in the forefront, the pipe of the contemplative smoker right next to it, and through the opened curtains his trademark, the Finnish nature, peers in. It is in this instance that we can truly speak of a visual jargon of authenticity that unfolds.
Facade
In 1944 Alvar Aalto wrote: "For myself I want to point out that I am not particularly interested in the design of private houses except where there is an opportunity for experiment, which who knows, may later be of some use in creating large groups of buildings and the community."₃₁
However, the noble aims that Aalto connected with the designs of villas seldom found reflection in the small houses that Aalto designed for the little man. The modular AA houses, for example, were erected in the simplest construction thinkable and made entirely from wood. The experimental foundations of Muuratsalo — although never applied elsewhere — may still be explained by a humanist search for efficient construction techniques, but the brick experiments come much closer to an aesthetic, artistic, and eventually well publishable exercise. The manifesto of Muuratsalo confirms this view, as it describes the brick facade as a test of visual effects and the aging of the bricks. It describes the house as the chance to play purely for pleasure‘s sake. Even though
Aalto identified play very much in Yrjö Hirn‘s sense - which imbues it with a rather serious undertone - a closer look at the facade stretches even Hirn‘s stringent notion of play, at least, to an extreme.
Kari Jormakka explained the ostensibly free-form plan of the House of Culture in Helsinki and the section of the church Riola di Vergato near Bologna as geometric constructions.₃₂ It is possible to scrutinize the Experimental House in similar terms. The proportions of the main facade and the location of the entrance door and the living room window are particularly telling, just as the organization of the more than 50 brick patches seems to be based on classic geometric construction. An early elevation (11) shows the facade with an inscribed square, whose right side marks the hinge-line of the door. The diagonal rising from the lower corner of the higher facade edge thereby defines the tip of the large window, while the horizontal center line of the square reflects in the brick pattern. Another version (12) defines the overall width with two abutting squares, both of which adhere to the height of their respective corners. Their abutting sides define the hinge line of the door. A circular section drawn from the right tip of the large square with a vanishing point at the intersection of roof and floor line, defines the other edge of the door. The center lines of the squares — the large one horizontally, the small one vertically — reflect in the organization of brick patches (13). While the larger geometric inscriptions of squares and golden rectangles are unmistakable one should not overrate the smaller fragments of these drawings since their sketchy imprecision may leave room to interpretation that was not initially intended.
A more detailed facade drawing finally lends itself to a more detailed scrutiny. The facade proportions (14) are based on a golden rectangle, whose square adheres to the height by the facade‘s higher edge, while the lower edge emerges from the tip of the golden rectangle‘s circular section. Another golden rectangle, based on the height of the lower edge, defines the location of the entrance door, which is positioned between the square‘s inner edge and its circular section. The door is finally centered in the facade (15), while its height is half the height of the smaller golden rectangle. Simultaneously many of the demarcation lines between brick patches seem to derive from an evolution of golden rectangles multiplied by the square-root of 2, that originate from the patch in which Aalto assembled a collection of colored tiles (16).₃₃ One may further suggest that the center line of the door initiates a rhythm of verticals spaced by circular segments that deploy the vanishing point of the floor and the roof line (17).
The floor of the courtyard seems to be constructed in similar terms. Straight lines that extend from point of geometric interest like corners and edges via a corner of the square fire pit in the centre surprisingly often hit other points of geometric interest at their other ends, constructing a web of geometric relations. The geometric structure of the Experimental House‘s brick facade is obviously highly complex and its fragmentation cannot be explained by geometry alone, but — as Jormakka, Gargus and Graf already suggested with reference to other Aalto projects — „the geometric regularities are too many and too precise to be accidental results of an intuitive process.“₃₄ Aalto thus paired Hirn‘s notion of play with a more Aaltoesque rationale of the land surveyor. Although not fully re-constructible, an advanced level of rationale seems consistent in all three facade drawings. Consciously or unconsciously, the brick facade‘s complexity thus airs an aura of intuition and play, even though its actual origins are more restrained than the result suggests. Like Mäkinen‘s photographs of the Experimental House, the brick patches taken as a whole enable an array of associations that their individual parts could not have triggered by themselves. Such correlated elements - (too) easily graspable photographs and a (too) overwhelming facade - are perceived not as single impressions, but, indeed, as a concerted jargon.
Authenticity
Yet, Adorno‘s formulation of a jargon of authenticity was basically the reaction to the systematic discourse on authenticity that had
developed in the phenomenological-existentialist tradition. In Sein und Zeit Heidegger approached the renewal of thinking through the ideal of the archaic.₃₅ Simultaneously, Heidegger‘s preference for countrymen and the provincial, as opposed to the urban, is explained by their closer proximity to the 'things themselves', allowing them a more open gaze on the unveiling of the thing‘s essentiality. Authenticity thus emerged through utter subjectivity, just like the century old farm houses of the black forest, in which the act of building still equaled the act of dwelling without discrepancy.₃₆ Heidegger‘s own black forest weekend house in which Sein und Zeit was written — in dimensions roughly the size of Muuratsalo‘s courtyard — serves as another example of unquestioned architectural essence. The Aalto‘s summer home in Muuratsalo was quite different. It was neither an old, ever present structure, nor was it based on common vernacular building techniques. In fact, it contrasted Heidegger‘s idea of subjectivity from its outset, since, after all, the Experimental House was a highly analytical proclamation. Additionally Aalto himself was not unconditionally Finnish. He certainly held his country dear, but simultaneously called it semi-barbaric₃₇, complained about its fly infested forests₃₈, and loved Finnish winters because one could spend them elsewhere₃₉. The Muuratsalo project, I would argue, however holds a similar relation with its environments. Rather than being the essence of Finnishness it is ambivalent about its own roots, especially with traits uncommon in traditional Finnish summer homes like the courtyard typology, its introversion, the expressive butterfly roof and the facade layout. In turn, elements like the foundation of untreated wood, columns arranged according to exposed rock formations, and a sauna shaped by the natural tapering of logs at first sight allude to the essential in Heidegger‘s terms. In summary, however, these elements create an architectural dialect that lends itself to distinctly authentic interpretations without much further action, just as their creator, Alvar Aalto, without wrongdoing, did himself. When, in 1972, Göran Schildt asked: "Do you think you‘ve been able to add something specifically Finnish to international architecture, themes rooted in our conditions?" Aalto responded: "l have nothing against that interpretation."₄₀
Conclusion
The above quote proves how well Aalto tuned his mediatized image. Similarly, Aalto‘s authenticity is, unlike Weston claims, not so difficult to define. Just as any other protagonist of the modern movement, Aalto was born into a world increasingly shaped by the overwhelming rise of mass-media. Together with an accelerating consumer culture this inevitably effected Aalto‘s architecture, but even more so its presentation. Returning to Weston‘s introductory quote, the images of the Experimental House are thus just as present as its substance, its instant appeal just as impressive as its lasting value. It remains unquestioned that Aalto took a deep interest in his designs, his country, and the little man, but it must also be said, that he masterly instrumentalized the arrangement and presentation of his work, in this case the Experimental House in Muuratsalo, in order to sustain the niche he had come to occupy in the field of modern architecture. The project‘s heterotopian setting, its indistinct function, the temporary occupation, its clear-cut publication images, and a main facade that was as iconic as its construction was intangible makes an inviting surface for the projection of mystic and authenticating qualities. As Adorno put it: "The words become terms of the jargon only through the constellation that they negate, through each one‘s gesture of uniqueness."₄₁ It is in this sense that the individual fragments of the architectural language of Aalto‘s Experimental House become abbreviated signals of a newly installed truth that rely as much on their physical manifestation as they rely on a media-made authenticity.
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21 Img. 1-102
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23 Img. 100287
24 Img. 100291
25 Img. 100297
26 Img. 100318
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28 Img. 100332, 100333, 100383
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41 Theodor W. Adorno, Jargon of Authenticity, trans. K. Tarnowski, F. Will, Northwestern Univeristy Press, Evanston, 1973, p.7