Casa experimental, Muuratsalo
Casa experimental, Muuratsalo
Arquitecto: Alvar Aalto
Construido en: 1952-1953
Ubicación: Isla de Muuratsalo, Finlandia
Coordenadas: 62° 6' 53" N, 25° 44' 42" E
EXPERIMENTAL HOUSE, MUURATSALO
Ties of friendship usually unite people of the same generation. And yet I have counted among my truly close friends some who could be said to belong to the "grand old" generation, Helene de Mandrot, Henry van de Velde, Frank Lloyd Wright, and, in Finland, Yrjö Hirn.
Whether it is due to Yrjö Hirn's influence or not, through the force of his personality, a conception or an instinctive feeling has taken root in me, that we, in the midst of our hard-working, calculating, utilitarian era, must regard play as of decisive importance when we build communities for people - large children. This thought occurs in one form or another, I suppose, to every architect with a sense of responsibility.
To depend only on play, though, would become a game with form, structure, and finally with people's bodies and souls; it would be to take play too playfully. But Yrjö Hirn was serious, and he also took his theory of play with deepest seriousness. In a similar manner we should unite our experimental work with a play mentality or vice versa.
Not until architecture's structural elements, the forms logically derived from them, and our empirical knowledge are modified by what we seriously can call play, or art, will we be proceeding in the right direction. Technology and economy must always be combined with life-enriching charm.
On the high-lying island of Muuratsalo in the middle of Lake Päijänne, stands an experimental house —still without a name— which was built to give the ar-chitect a chance to play purely for pleasure's sake. But it has also been done for serious experimental purposes, essentially to deal with problems that the architect can-not get involved with on ordinary building projects. One should, of course, always experiment, even with one's clients' buildings, or there would be no progress either in architecture or building technology. And yet experiments can be given only the narrowest freedom of scope within the framework of practical requirements in a real building project. In our playhouse we [Aalto and his wife, Elissa] wanted to experiment even with things whose practical content no one has yet measured.
The building complex at Muuratsalo is meant to become a kind of synthesis between a protected archi-tectural studio and an experimental center where one can expect to try experiments that are not ready to be tried elsewhere, and where the proximity to nature can give fresh inspiration both in terms of form and con-struction. Perhaps it will be possible there to find the specific character of architectural detail that our north-ern climate requires.
The building has, with its experimental aim in mind, been designed so that it differs from the normal; the same forms have not been used throughout, nor the same scale, nor the same construction. Thus all the walls, around the closed patio are divided into approxi-mately fifty panels in which the effect of ceramic mate-rials, brick, joints, different brick formats, and surface treatments have been tried out. These experiments with form also include tests of durability that are daily the object of the architect's observation. Similar experi-ments take place on the central patio, where from one year to the next we have tried different techniques for surfacing different areas, from the point of view of aes-thetic effect. We have tried everything from brick and stone surfaces to decorative plants and mosses. The wall construction of the building varies, and for experimental purposes different roof constructions have been at-tempted.
Of the prospective building group the modest main house with its central patio is already finished, while the second building phase is currently in progress. This will include the following:
1. EXPERIMENTS WITH A BUILDING WITHOUT FOUNDATIONS, in this case, a diagonal system of beams laid on the rocks embedded in the mo-raine ridge, so that the wood building has been stabi-lized despite the indeterminate location of the structural supports.
2. EXPERIMENTS OF AN IRREGULAR ROW OF COLUMNS (NONLINEAR COLON-NADE) where the columns holding up the building have been placed in the most advantageous points in the terrain.
3. FREE-FORM BRICK CONSTRUCTIONS. An attempt to develop a type of standard brick or stan-dard element so that it becomes possible to make walls in a capricious curved form without having to change the standard pieces, in other words, a sort of further de-velopment of the now practically forgotten form bricks, but adapted for other, more up-to-date purposes.
4. A studio that is not connected to the heating system of the other buildings crowns the group of buildings. This separate pavilion involves an EXPERI-MENT WITH SOLAR HEATING such that wall and roof surfaces, which accumulate the warmth, are inde-pendent of the building's other parts. This is in contrast to what has been the practise in purely technical ex-periments up to this date.
THE WHOLE COMPLEX OF BUILDINGS IS DOMINATED BY THE FIRE that burns at the center of the patio and that, from the point of view of practicality and comfort, serves the same purpose as the campfire in a winter camp, where the glow from the fire and its reflections from the surrounding snowbanks create a pleasant, almost mystical feeling of warmth.
Texto tomado de: Alvar Aalto, Arkkitehti 9-10/1953. (Traducción de Stuart Wrede, Alvar Aalto. Sketches. Ed. by Göran Schildt)
Arquitecto: Alvar Aalto
Construido en: 1952-1953
Ubicación: Isla de Muuratsalo, Finlandia
Coordenadas: 62° 6' 53" N, 25° 44' 42" E
Durante la construcción de las oficinas municipales en la vecina Säynätsalo, Aalto y su ayudante Elissa, quien muy pronto habría de ser su mujer, descubrieron un terreno extrañamente atractivo en la costa virgen de la isla de Muuratsalo, y se pusieron de acuerdo con su propietario –la firma Ahiström– para adquirirlo. En ese lugar construyeron, en 1952-1953, una casa-estudio que debía servir como un hogar destinado al ocio, y también como emplazamiento para los ensayos de una serie de experimentos arquitectónicos que llevaban entre manos, acordes con la tesis aaltiana de que los arquitectos deberían tener oportunidad de ensayar sus nuevas ideas, como en un laboratorio. La casa en cuestión es un edificio modesto, construido parcialmente con ladrillos desechados de la obra de Säynätsalo. Consiste en dos alas perpendiculares, una de las cuales está destinada a sala de estar (fuertemente personalizada por la inclusión de un loft –al estilo de Le Corbusier– dedicado a la pintura, el hobby de Aalto), mientras que la otra comprende dos dormitorios y un baño; la cocina está situada en el punto de intersección de ambas alas. Estas dos alas y la prolongación de sus dos fachadas cortas, configuran un patio cuadrado, cercado por muros bastante altos, con un hogar rehundido en el suelo en posición central. La experimentación de labora-torio –que en origen debía haber incluido la de un sis-tema de calefacción para el invierno por almacenamiento del calor del lago mediante una bomba de calor–, a la larga se redujo al mero uso de cantos rodados de apoyo en substitución de cimientos de obra y a la comprobación de la durabilidad de varios tipos de ladrillo y de baldosa cerámica. Estas últimas pruebas se llevaron ala práctica subdividiendo las paredes y suelo del patio en unos cincuenta paneles de ensayo, cada uno de ellos de un material; algunos de esos materiales fueron encargados expresamente a la fábrica de ladrillos Santamäki, en Riihimäki. En 1953, se añadió una ala de madera, con dos dormitorios para invitados y ayudantes del despacho que pasaran la noche en la casa. El conjunto incluía, además, una cabaña, una sauna experimental, y un embarcadero para la lancha motora “Nemo Propheta in Patria”.
Texto tomado de Göran Schildt, Alvar Aalto. Obra completa: Arquitectura, arte y diseño, Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 1996, páginas 197-198.
Ties of friendship usually unite people of the same generation. And yet I have counted among my truly close friends some who could be said to belong to the "grand old" generation, Helene de Mandrot, Henry van de Velde, Frank Lloyd Wright, and, in Finland, Yrjö Hirn.
Whether it is due to Yrjö Hirn's influence or not, through the force of his personality, a conception or an instinctive feeling has taken root in me, that we, in the midst of our hard-working, calculating, utilitarian era, must regard play as of decisive importance when we build communities for people - large children. This thought occurs in one form or another, I suppose, to every architect with a sense of responsibility.
To depend only on play, though, would become a game with form, structure, and finally with people's bodies and souls; it would be to take play too playfully. But Yrjö Hirn was serious, and he also took his theory of play with deepest seriousness. In a similar manner we should unite our experimental work with a play mentality or vice versa.
Not until architecture's structural elements, the forms logically derived from them, and our empirical knowledge are modified by what we seriously can call play, or art, will we be proceeding in the right direction. Technology and economy must always be combined with life-enriching charm.
On the high-lying island of Muuratsalo in the middle of Lake Päijänne, stands an experimental house —still without a name— which was built to give the ar-chitect a chance to play purely for pleasure's sake. But it has also been done for serious experimental purposes, essentially to deal with problems that the architect can-not get involved with on ordinary building projects. One should, of course, always experiment, even with one's clients' buildings, or there would be no progress either in architecture or building technology. And yet experiments can be given only the narrowest freedom of scope within the framework of practical requirements in a real building project. In our playhouse we [Aalto and his wife, Elissa] wanted to experiment even with things whose practical content no one has yet measured.
The building complex at Muuratsalo is meant to become a kind of synthesis between a protected archi-tectural studio and an experimental center where one can expect to try experiments that are not ready to be tried elsewhere, and where the proximity to nature can give fresh inspiration both in terms of form and con-struction. Perhaps it will be possible there to find the specific character of architectural detail that our north-ern climate requires.
The building has, with its experimental aim in mind, been designed so that it differs from the normal; the same forms have not been used throughout, nor the same scale, nor the same construction. Thus all the walls, around the closed patio are divided into approxi-mately fifty panels in which the effect of ceramic mate-rials, brick, joints, different brick formats, and surface treatments have been tried out. These experiments with form also include tests of durability that are daily the object of the architect's observation. Similar experi-ments take place on the central patio, where from one year to the next we have tried different techniques for surfacing different areas, from the point of view of aes-thetic effect. We have tried everything from brick and stone surfaces to decorative plants and mosses. The wall construction of the building varies, and for experimental purposes different roof constructions have been at-tempted.
Of the prospective building group the modest main house with its central patio is already finished, while the second building phase is currently in progress. This will include the following:
1. EXPERIMENTS WITH A BUILDING WITHOUT FOUNDATIONS, in this case, a diagonal system of beams laid on the rocks embedded in the mo-raine ridge, so that the wood building has been stabi-lized despite the indeterminate location of the structural supports.
2. EXPERIMENTS OF AN IRREGULAR ROW OF COLUMNS (NONLINEAR COLON-NADE) where the columns holding up the building have been placed in the most advantageous points in the terrain.
3. FREE-FORM BRICK CONSTRUCTIONS. An attempt to develop a type of standard brick or stan-dard element so that it becomes possible to make walls in a capricious curved form without having to change the standard pieces, in other words, a sort of further de-velopment of the now practically forgotten form bricks, but adapted for other, more up-to-date purposes.
4. A studio that is not connected to the heating system of the other buildings crowns the group of buildings. This separate pavilion involves an EXPERI-MENT WITH SOLAR HEATING such that wall and roof surfaces, which accumulate the warmth, are inde-pendent of the building's other parts. This is in contrast to what has been the practise in purely technical ex-periments up to this date.
THE WHOLE COMPLEX OF BUILDINGS IS DOMINATED BY THE FIRE that burns at the center of the patio and that, from the point of view of practicality and comfort, serves the same purpose as the campfire in a winter camp, where the glow from the fire and its reflections from the surrounding snowbanks create a pleasant, almost mystical feeling of warmth.
Texto tomado de: Alvar Aalto, Arkkitehti 9-10/1953. (Traducción de Stuart Wrede, Alvar Aalto. Sketches. Ed. by Göran Schildt)
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