kolme suomalaista arkkitehtia

Yesterday, at Auli Puhakka's invitation, I visited Evata, the largest architectural firm in Finland (100 people, including 60 architects). Several international students, Rebecca, and I got a brief tour of the office and then a PowerPoint presentation from one of the principals. Rebecca said, "this feels like being back in Bruce Donnally's professional practice class," and indeed it did. (Were we supposed to write essays after the visit?) Specifically, it felt like being at Callison. We didn't hear much about building design, but we saw a lot of org charts and presentation graphics. I suppose somebody needs to design sports arenas, shopping malls, and speculative office complexes, but this type of work is not personally interesting. For me, architecture must be place-specific to be significant, and it must be derived from human needs rather than the dictates of corporate capitalism.

Earlier in the day we went to two lectures at TKK, the first by Mikko Kaira and the second by Anders Adlercreutz. These lectures were part of the "Wood Works" series that my friend Philip told me about and that complements TKK's famous wood architecture program. Mikko's lecture was fine, but Anders' was much more exciting. He showed us several interesting examples of his work, including his own greenhouse, a house for a conductor, and a day care center. While his designs are formally modern, he has a material sensibility that is informed by tradition. The conductor's house, for example, consists of two volumes, one of which is constructed of stacked logs. The surfaces used in the day care center were selected for their textural properties (smooth if they will be touched or leaned against vs. rough if they are not intended to be touched) and given associative finishes such as traditional red paint or aromatic tar.