HABITATINTL. Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 5-21,198s 0197-3975/88 $3.00 + 0.

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Printed in Great Britain. Pergamon Press plc

The Alternative: Alvar Aalto’s

Urban Plans, 1940-1970
JUSSI RAUTSI”
Ministry of the Environment, Helsinki, Finland?_

INTRODUCTION

It is not generally known that the architect Alvar Aalto was an urban planning
theorist during the dramatic period of structural change in Finland after the
Second World War. He himself was ready to turn these ideas into practice but
did not succeed. However, he considered it crucially important to continue,
because his design work had a direct relation with his urban theory - partly
through his functionalist analysis, which he applies with powerful effect to the
demographic and industrial development consequences of Finland’s wood-
processing economy. It is impossible to understand Aalto’s architecture without
knowing his urbanism.

THE NEW RESPONSIBILITY

On 8th August 1945, 43 years ago, when Finns opened their morning papers,
they read about a new type of weapon. According to UP news, it had caused
“considerable” damage in a town called Hiroshima. More detailed information
was kept secret.
On the very same day, in the very same newspapers, the architect/planner
Alvar Aalto presented the reconstruction plan for the town of Rovaniemi in
Lapland. The destruction of Rovaniemi had been total and, as Aalto said, it had
been razed from the face of the Earth. The planning group had prepared the plan
in just a few weeks. Aalto himself was 47 years old. He was a mature
professional and considered himself ready to enter the field of town and regional
planning. He was conscious of his social and ethical responsibility as a planner
and citizen. In Yale in 1939 he had written:
“Nearly all the jobs that you will get - though they may be very strange from
the architectural point of view - will contain the possibility that something in
them may be made use of for the advancement of architecture and the
betterment of social conditions. You are working as a responsible designer
who is responsible for an entire nation and for the social life of the entire
world.”

*The author gratefully acknowledges a grant from Leo and Regina Wainstein Foundation for the research on
Aalto’s plans. This article is a development of a lecture given in 1986 at the Royal Institute of British
Architects, London, UK. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of
the Ministry of the Environment.
TAddress for correspondence: Ministry of the Environment, PO Box 399, Hameentie 3-5, SF-00121
Helsinki, Finland.

5
6 Jussi Rautsi

Critique, not always amplification

None of his urban plans’ were realised even though, for some three decades, this
planning work had been closely linked to the financing and administrative
agencies in Finland. The reason for this was the emerging dominance of short-
sighted technical efficiency and economic gains, interlinked with sporadic
planning politics. However, it is sometimes worthwhile to go back in planning
history and examine also the unrealised alternatives.
Aalto’s critical thinking teaches a lesson: official planning machinery is not
always capable of self-evaluation. Even the most common goals, such as the
rapid industrialisation of post-war Finland, can have unexpected effects in such
complex things like societies. Aalto’s planning method included the analysis of
social and cultural impacts of economic change. That was new at the time, and is
not evident today, no matter what the protagonists of modern planning methods
try to preach to the reality around them. According to Aalto, urban planning
should be critical of existing trends, not simply amplify them. This is the key
point in his urban plans.

THE BACKGROUND DYNAMICS: TO A NEW SOCIAL AND SPATIAL

ORGANISATION

The production structure of the Finnish industry was completely restructured

after the Second World War. The pre-War “Wood Republic” was forced to
reorganise itself in order to meet Finland’s obligations to pay war compensation
- mainly in heavy metal products. The wood-processing industry was able to
hold to its strong position as well. This process reshaped the industrial geography
of the country, and it also reshaped the social geography. The stable, rurally-
orientated society was industrialised - i.e. “modernised” - within 2% decades.
The speed was drastic compared with other West European countries. The
country was totally reshaped right up to the 1970s (Fig. 1). It had a new social
and spatial organisation.
New activities needed energy. A rather ruthless hydropower programme was
implemented in the almost virgin north. But water power plants were not labour-
intensive, and the average farm size or the climate did not provide sufficient
living conditions for people in northern and eastern Finland. However, the
country had to resettle nearly half a million war refugees, mainly in these areas.
These people formed a labour reserve that started to move south in the late
1950s. This migration lasted for 15 years.
In all this, what had happened to towns and villages? Before the war, Finland
had been a rather traditionalist society. Countryside towns had distinctive roles
in the wood-processing network. There were a few old industrial and trade
centres - and Helsinki - which had had time for balanced development.
Town planning was absolutely paralysed when the population started to move
southwards during the 1960s. The structure of Finnish towns broke during this
urbanisation - i.e. random clusterisation - process. Because of its speed, the
process remained uncontrolled. The society did not have the means (nor always
the will) to guide it. Building land was bought where it was cheapest; the
traditional centres were drowned in an amorphous mass of construction.

‘These “comprehensive” plans are presented in this paper. This selection of Aaho’s works is based on the
entire sphere of urban functions and their spatial organisation. This approach includes plans that cover work
areas, commercial areas. residential areas and building types, free areas, recreation. parks, untouched nature,
and traffic. These works were town plans in the classical meaning of this term. The regional scale was only a
natural extension of Aalto’s planning principles.
This selection leaves out most of Aalto’s better known urban design works; these are usually separate centres
like Jyvaskyla, Seinajoki or plans dominated by only one function: Otaniemi by education. Saynatsalo by
administration. Sunila by one factory, em.
 The Alternative: Alvar Aalto’s Urban Plans, 1940-1970 7

(al Cb)

Fig. I The basic dynamics of post- War industrialisation in Finland. Figure (a) shows main timber
flows. Figure (b) shows how the people started to move south as well in the 1960s. For 30 years,
Aalto made plans for settlemenls in both the departure and arrival ends of this “Great Migration”.

The War had drastically changed the basic social structures. Nearly all
traditional values collapsed. The patriarchal family had broken down when
women came into factories and took care of farms during the war, where men
were suddenly put face-to-face with the effective war technology. The young
nation entered a stage of ambivalence in basic life-style and values. Most present
city dwellers moved in only during the last two decades.

The Don Quixote-planner?

Aalto’s planning works were an effort to solve environmental and social
problems in different stages of the ultimately rapid socio-economic change. He
did this with his means, physical planning. Aalto used such concepts as the
protection of the individual and the feeling of safety. According to his view, the
living and working environment should not change along the lines of Taylorist
functionalism. Aalto did not question the basics of the Finnish society, but de did
try to find a realistic solution according to his values. He tried to guide the
monster: the advantages of modern industry perhaps could be distributed in such
a way that the individual would not have to be the loser subordinated to more
“general objectives” of development.

Combining the social and the spatial

Aalto’s regional plans and experimental towns contain concepts of the relations
between social and spatial development and are illustrations of his values. Until
the 1940s he had taken part for more than 10 years in the international
discussion of the CIAM circle. He had also worked in the research laboratory of
the Massachusetts institute of Technalogy. His range of interests was large: from
inter-disciplinary housing research to the social problems of industrialisation.
In 1949, Aalto defined his method in the following way:
“urban planning involves a simultaneous solution for all functions - traffic,
socia1 questions, housing, industrial plants. aesthetic and c~)rnn~~rcia~view-
points, and many more, so that they become bounded together in a unified
network. Exactly as the medieval city once upon at rime lost its fortification
walls and the modern city grew out beyond them, the concept of the city is in
the process of shedding its constraints. But this time it should not once again
lead to a larger unit. but in an interlinked formation with the countryside. The
underlying meaning of regional planning is to syncronise the development of
town and country.”

THE WORKS

Aalto prepared this schematic plan while teaching at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. He introduced it to a Finnish audience in 11641,in a popular
magazine, to start a discussion on new planning problems. In this article, he also
analysed the concept of post-War man and new needs. The plan was strongly
influenced by American “New Deal”’ ideas. The civic centre and prefabrication
of wooden houses were modified to Finnish conditions.
In the plan, there are different housing types for people in different stages and
situations of life, and the town is fitted into a typical Finnish geographical
formation. Building was to follow Aaltct’s principle of organic growth; society
would finance the primary structure of the house. Additional building and
improving the quality of the facilities was then up to the dwellers. This system
also externalised Aalto’s thoughts on the shares of responsibility between society
and the individual.
Aalto connected this town model directly to the on-going regional planning
work in the Kokem$iki River Valley. The town was intended to be built for the
evacuees from Karelia, a province lost in the War, to alleviate the shock caused
by losing homes and land.
The settling of the evacuees required land reform. The redistribution of
privately-owned agricultural land was voluntary and there existed a wide
political consensus on the taken land policy measures.’

~~~ern~~~ River V&tey PEnrr ~~~4~~~~41~

In the Kokemaki River Valley Plan, Aalto introduced the Tennessee Valley
Authority planning idea in Finland; he broke with the formalistic ideas of
‘Many land reforms were carried out in Finland after the country became independent in 1917. With the aid
af these reforms land was given to the landless or homeless population and the tenancy rights of leaseholders
were ensured. These reforms were carried out in both rural and urban areas. The total area of the reforms dealt
with was about 5.5 million hectares. from which around 345,OOflsites were formed, In addition, about 6,000
rental agreements were ensured. Land was thus obtained by some 35~.~)~~~ famihes. Of the land used only ahout
1.7 milhon ha was originnlly state-owned land. The remaining 3.8 miilion ha (about 70%) was acquired by
expropriation or by voluntary sales agreements. The price paid for requisitioned land was generahy below the
market price. As a consequence of the reforms. the average size of farms has grown rather slowly and at times
even decreased. This has not, however, caused a reduction in food production. The consequence of these
reforms was the preservation of social stability even in the conditions after the Second World War, when nearly
500,000 people from the areas lost in the War had to be relocated. Finland did not need refugee camps, The
most important reasons for the success of the land reforms can be considered as follows: (a) sufficiently wide
and real political will: (b) solutions successful from the legal and administrative point of view; (c) a competent
and loyal civil administration in the implementation of the reforms; and (d) the activeness and initiative of the
land receivers in land acquisition, land-clearing and home-buitdin~ (see Virtanen and Halme. 1983).
rig. 2. In his numerous commissions from the wood processing industry Aaltp could concretise his
,oncept of the unity of design and planning. In Sunila, in the late 1930s Aalto initiated the regional
plan, made the structure plan and designed the buildings. Sunila was also the first settlement in
Finland provided with a distinct heating system. The illustrated example is the plan for the Summa
industrial area in the 1950s. This plan was only partly implemented.
 The Alternative: Alvar Aalto’s Urban Plans, 1940-1970 11

CIAM-purists by rejecting the perspective of the penetrating urbanisation of

society. He began to focus his interest on small settlements, and especially in the
relation of agriculture and industry (Fig. 2). This plan strengthened the regional
characteristics and introduced “a new, Finnish type combination of town and
country life” (Aalto, 1941).
The planning work covered seven municipalities, which all had different basic
roles in the industrial network. They were in various stages of development. This
was accepted as a starting point in the plan; these different profiles were to be
specified by independent development programmes.
Aalto introduced the planning idea to the Chamber of Commerce, and a joint
administration of the public and private sector was created. This activity was to
deal with the whole region “as one economical unity. The problems of traffic,
agriculture, industry and dwellings as well as ones with economical and social
importance are solved within one frame” (Aalto, 1941).
The socio-political aim of the plan was to guide the development of the river
valley under the pressures caused by rapid industrialisation and the settling of
the Karelian evacuees.
Planning principles were thus established. Local needs and interests were
channelled in the plan by an elected council with municipal councillors. The
traditional village structure was used in programming future land-use. Old road
lines were transformed into a local traffic network. A new highway and railway
cable formed the backbone of the industry of the valley. Farming land was not
wasted under construction; old location principles were followed. A new type of
collective farming village was proposed to reduce costs of per family invest-
ments. Industrial areas were kept relatively small and divided by farming and
forest zones. Traffic connections (railway, highway and airfield) were located in
a “traffic park”.

Reconstruction plan for Rovaniemi (1944-l 945)

The total destruction of Rovaniemi was a drop to “point zero” for this town.
When presenting the plan in the journal Arkkitehti in 1945, he wrote:
“Rovaniemi, the devastated centre of Finnish Lapland, and the surrounding
countryside stand as symbols of our reconstruction. In comparison with the
other industrial countries, Finland is deriving considerable benefits from her
close contact with nature. Not to be overlooked is the skill in the use of the
axe and in manual woodcraft”.
This refers to the lack of construction materials after the War. But, as sometimes
happens, scarcity advanced creativity. The fact that the country had to build
practically without nails raised the quality of woodwork.
The Rovaniemi plan is maybe the best known application of Aalto’s “elasticity
principle”. The very first thing was to separate two different - perhaps opposing
- elements in the basic concept of this town: the town itself and the traffic
centre of the whole province.
In 1945, Aalto stated:
“From the chaotic pattern of old Rovaniemi, marked by black ruins, a special
centre was formed according to the town planning principle reminding one of
a human hand placed on the map of the town. Symbolically one can say that a
community was hereby formed, this hand constituting a central park, the
fingers making zones where traffic should be placed, and the open spaces
between fingers being that part of the town where people live and work.
“When forming the new plan, special attention was paid to the attainment
of such elasticity that would leave an opportunity for alternative solutions in
12 Jwi Rautsi

placing traffic routes etc. The same principle also applies to the public and
communal buildings, whose character and size can not be fixed at present.
The elasticity is concentrated into a special part of the plan. This is indicated
by a star-shaped sector, the so called reindeer horn.”

Planning principles: the reindeer horn. Aalto rejected the traditional rect-
angular grid pattern. The lesson can be read “between the lines”: this layout had
lead to strictly cubic buildings and dull plans after the breakthrough of
functionalism in Europe. In Rovaniemi, Aalto tried to prevent this by
introducing a hexagonal division of land into plots to “avoid monotony and
psychological staleness in the community” (Aalto, 1945).
The plan was intended to be realised as a unified whole. The building of all
functions was proposed to start at the same time, according to Aalto’s
“simultaneity principle”. The plan held the idea that an urban totality can be
attained only if the parts have a dialogue with each other from the beginning:

“No activity is possible until people get a roof over their heads. This means
that sufficient time for planning can not be afforded to the first stage
constructors, but the elastic system reserves space for future solutions. The
central park serves (at the starting stage) as a reserve for all public buildings
(the civic centre). It appears that neither sociological nor demographical
prognoses can help us in evaluating the growth of Rovaniemi. The plan must
therefore be so elastic that it allows the town hitherto unthought-of changes in
size without the present community being a hazardous equivalent of a bigger
town of some possible future” (Aalto. 1945).

The third principle refers to the balanced utilisation of building land as well as to
the programming and methods of building at the various stages of construction:
“an unorganic way of building is avoided by erecting even timber buildings of
the first (emergency-) stage so that they support the civic centre, and not to
the outskirts of the town. Use raw materials and skills that are at hand. They
do not burden .the transportation system and are serviceable in local
conditions” (Aalto, 1945).

The erection of the civic centre was programmed to start as soon as possible
because of its communally strengthening meaning. The centre contained all the
public services needed by the people: “All institutions serving the public in this
widespread province are gathered in one clear address which facilitates the
admission of the public” (Alto, 1945).
Characteristic to an Aalto-type centre was its connection from one side to the
main dominant of nature; in Rovaniemi this was the river bank. The centre was a
social link between the people and a spatial link between urban life and nature.

Regional plan for Lapland (1951-l 957)

The main problem with the vast area was simply what to do with it. Cold and
poor as it was, it had something that the developing south needed. It had free-
flowing rivers for the production of hydro-electric power. The history of
settlement planning in this area after the War is the history of the energy sector.
The building of the power plant network was a concentrated activity and created
the strong ties between the public and private sectors in Finnish economic life.
The results were successful from the economical and technical point of view, and
other objectives were not problematised. The means were as ruthless as in most
industrialisation programmes in post-War Europe.
Aalto started his planning work immediately after the War, and the regional
 The Alternative: Alvar Aalto’s Urban Plans, 1940-1970 13

plan was a direct extension of the Rovaniemi reconstruction effort. In the

beginning, Aalto’s commission was to complement power plant construction by
planning villages for workers. Aalto shifted the emphasis, or, more frankly, did
not accept this as the sole role for planning. He began to develop a settlement
pattern that would improve the living conditions of natives and settlers. He
utilised his original idea of “organic planning”; housing intended for temporary
labour was planned in such a manner that it would later become part of the
regular settlement structure. He had an idea that that sounded strange: planning
had to be done before it was needed. In some cases this caused an optimal
situation - planning made itself unnecessary.
Aalto’s planning group also initiated a wide-scale research project on planning
principles and living conditions for northern, semi-Arctic settlements (Fig. 3).
This was pioneering work. Architect Jaakko Kaikkonen, who was in charge of
Aalto’s branch office in Rovaniemi, stated: “because we had no basic research
results available, in most cases we had to go straight to the synthesis stage, and
leave necessary preliminary research until later” (Kaikkonen, 1957). This
citation indicates a strong trust in local wisdom. The method was possible only by
doing the work in close contact with the local people, in the midst of them.

Planning principles: local resources for local people. Planning should facilitate
the use of local resources by/for local population. Settlements are never isolated,
that is why they should be planned as parts of a network. Even the strongest and
most “self-evident” programmes can be critically analysed. The preservation of
nature and the traditional life style on the other hand, and power plant
construction on the other were conflicting interests. Aalto doubted the need of
such massive scale solutions that were implemented in Lapland.
Aalto’s plans were not procrustean beds. They gave a “genetic code”, a model
for changes in size and spatial organisation. The plans included guidelines for
growth during the construction stage. After that, they aimed at securing the
return to a more tranquil life for the permanent residents. In other words: even
strong quantitative change was possible without breaking the basic qualitative
pattern.

Ten years after: Rovaniemi revisited. The “reindeer horn” plan was not
followed, with the exception of some traffic arrangements. The failure was
caused by selective implementation. The results were disappointing because this
plan was meant to operate as a unified development programme. Breaking it
into pieces destroyed its internal logic.
The town planning machinery turned out to have sporadic and politically
conjunctural interests. The administration was divided into mutually competing
sectors. It was not able to integrate these activities. (We can imagine what
happens when for instance only the traffic system is built and not the centre and
housing area it was intended to serve; or if there is no originally-intended
dialogue between leisure, living and working areas.) There was vacant land for a
reasonable urban structure, but the town could not get hold of it (nor did it
always have the will). According to Aalto, there was no sense in town planning
as long as the land policy situation remained as it was. The 1958 building law did
not solve the problem.
During drafting detailed plans in the 1950s he was disappointed because land
policy had locked Rovaniemi in a pre-War stage of confusion. The society did
not use even the tools given by the planning law, which was under lively
discussion at the time. In particular, he pointed out that the civic centre was still
missing, and public buildings were scattered around the town: “The connection
between the city and its dwellers has not developed because the common centre
is missing” (Aalto, 1958).
14
 The Alternative: Alvar Aalto’s Urban Plans. 1940-1970 15

In any event, Aalto continued his work in this town and designed separate
public buildings. He also planned the Korkalovaara housing area, but compared
with his original scale it remained only a fragment.

Master Plan for Imatra (I 947-l 953)

For Aalto, industrialisation did not form a threat in itself. The danger lay in
uncontrolled development. The Zmatra Master Plan was commissioned by big
industry (Fig. 4). But, even in this case, Aalto followed his own planner’s ethics;
the planner’s responsibility was to understand the limits of exploiting regional
resources. often generated long before any “planning” even existed.
This plan was one of the last great efforts of the reconstruction period and
closed the first generation of post-War master plans. These plans spread
planning ideas for public discussion. The Imatra plan was published in the land-
use issue of Arkkitekti in 1957.
Imatra was established after the War as a wood-processing machine, and its
development has followed this branch of the Finnish industry. Aalto was
commissioned to draft this plan by one of the major companies. Aalto took the
situation as it was: Imatra was dominated by one company. (If you wanted
something to be done, you could not ignore the main agent of change.)
The municipality consisted of three villages located relatively far from each
other. Only 11% of the land was urban settlement, about 15% was agricultural

Fig. 4. The “Forest town” master plan of Imatra was Aalto’s most ambitious attempt to give an
environmental expression to wood-processing Finland. In this case, Aalto’s plan was misused; the
“elasticity” of the plan was, in the 196Os, used IO build a structureless town. The general problem
with this and Aalto’s other plans was that they were based on Aalto’s concept of the unity of design
and planning. When taken out o,f Aalto’s hands they did not work in the manner originally
intended.
16 Jussi Rautsi

land, 62% was forest, and the rest was industrial and traffic area. This
combination framed the Vuoksi River, terraced by power plants. Wood-
processing industry had concentrated itself on the north-shore of the lake.
The three villages and the industrial locations had been gathered under the
same local government because Finland had lost its Karelian factories and forests
in the War. Aalto referred to it as a “unique urban phenomenon” (Aalto, 1957).
His planning idea was somewhat surprising. In spite of the scattered parts, he
concluded that “in the preparation of the plan, the character of the area had to
be maintained and even developed” (Aalto, 1957). Here, Aalto introduced the
idea of the “forest town”.

Planning principles: the “forest town”. Aalto’s answer to the problem of

scatteredness was a dual solution. On the one hand, he introduced the idea of a
fourth, main centre linking the old three ones together. The necessity of one
clear centre was explicit in Aalto’s thought:
“When a new municipality is formed out of several scattered nuclei, a new
administrative centre is inevitably required. In this case. the best solution is to
leave the old centres in an equal position and form a new, more central
administrative focus, which all the old areas can use” (Aalto. 1953).

The other side of the solution was to continue developing the old centres. The
whole area was divided into 27 sub-areas and a detailed plan was drafted for each
one of them.
The elements of this forest town were kept together by the traffic system, the
settlement pattern and nature. Building was guided to follow traditional road
lines. The Vuoksi River kept together the central parts of this formation. Aalto
treated the Finnish forest as a vital element in planning; the forest breathed, it
was “realistic beauty” if compared with sophisticated park designs.
In this plan, there is agricultural land and even forest in the midst of the urban
structure. They had a twofold meaning: they determined the character of the
forest city and were a reserve area for possible growth. What was then the power
of such an elastic plan if the use of these central areas was left open? The
planners of the reconstruction period had good reasons to believe that the land-
policy tools of the new 1958 building law would provide tools to secure that the
use of this land would become publicly controlled. However, land policy took
another course, and the mostly privately owned reserve land became an object of
speculation. This was the main obstacle against Aalto’s planning principles in
this case.

The experimental towns

The experimental town plans Stensvik and Gammelbacka, in the fiercest
migration period in the 196Os, were Aalto’s contribution in the discussion on how
to build for the people moving south. Aalto’s ideas were not in line with the
mainstream and the clients gave up his plans in favour of cheaper and more
“effective” element techniques. Already in the early 194Os, Aalto warned about
using arguments such as employment in the building sector and short-sighted
economic gains in choosing the most effective way of realising housing
programmes. According to his line of thinking, this was more expensive to the
society in the long run, since it often led to psychological slums. (This is what
happened in many of the satellite estates later, in the 1960s. One of the main
tasks of the present urban renewal campaign in Finland is to improve these areas
as a living environment. Once again, society pays - this time for the
improvement - and often for the same companies who originally gathered the
profits when these areas were built!)
 The Alternative: Alvar Aalto’s Urban Plans, 1940-1970 17

The Stensvik experiment (1964-1970)

The area of Stensvik is located on the coastline near Helsinki. The land was
bought by a coalition led by Asuntosaatio, the same foundation that had been
initiated by Heikki von Hertzen to build Tapiola. So the area was owned by one
“district developer”, and there were no land ownership problems. In this sense,
Aalto had a free hand. Aalto and von Hertzen were in close cooperation during
the planning work.
The migration was reaching its peak, and demographers estimated that the
metropolitan area would gather one-third of the whole population until the year
2000. Stensvik was a part of the so-called Seven Cities Plan for the south-western
coast. On 7 January 1966, the headlines in morning papers reported that this
project was “Big in Europe, Biggest in Finland, a new type of town”.

Planning principles: a town based on information and nature. The new town of
Stensvik (Fig. 5) was intended for 42,000 inhabitants. It was divided into 9
residential districts. Housing was located on the slopes and centre activities as
well as public services in between, in the valleys.
Every residential district had its own basic services. The interplay of housing
and services was based on education: district schools were connected by “active
parks”. These green areas were for recreational purposes. The idea was to
visualise all stages of the trace of the human hand, from nature to urban
artefacts.
The topography, landscape and sea were chosen as urban determinants in a
time “when individual needs of stimulation have replaced sea ports as the
decisive factor of locating towns in this country. The towns are not mere
production and dwelling machines in the near future; they are the sphere where
the most valuable parts of the human life-cycle should happen” (Aalto, 1966).
All traditional layout patterns - e.g. the rectangular grid - were rejected.
The relation between nature and the built environment had to be direct.
Building “sought itself” on the slopes of the parallel rock formations. This led to
a comb-like layout where the valleys were left open. Building was not allowed to
cut clear corridors from inland to seashore.

Gammelbacka experimental town (1966-l 970)

Aalto accepted this commission with a full responsibility of the total built
environment, just as he had done in Sunila 30 years earlier. He made the plan,
designed the buildings, parks, traffic networks, yards, even furniture. His
approach started from the urban idea and ended up in the arrangement of the
immediate everyday milieu of the people living in the place.
The stages of planning and realisation of this area illustrate a process
beginning with ambitious goals and resulting in a problem area. Aalto’s plans did
not fit into the frame of public construction loan policy. There were also
technical obstacles; just as in Stensvik, a new prefabrication method was
introduced. These systems were not flexible enough to be used in Aalto’s
planning and buildings. Aalto’s plan was rejected in both Stensvik and
Gammelbacka.

EPILOGUE: WHY AALTO?

A critical analysis of planning, and architecture, is bound to contain social and

political elements. Aalto’s unrealised works, exactly because they remained
unrealised, reveal plenty of reasons why certain alternatives were built and
HA6 12:1-e
18 Jwsi Rautsi

Fig. 5. Ultimately effective standardisation and prefabrication in building technology was leading to
a “standardisation” of urban life as well. Aalto warned about ‘psychological slums” during the
fierce building period in the 1960s. The experimental town plans were Aalto’s attempt IOhumanise
standardisation, to turn it into a liberating instead of a depressing phenomen. Slensvik, in the [ale
196Os, was based on a then new concept, information. The fir,ytpattern for Stensvik was linear; later
Aallo modified it into a comb-like form which followed the topography of (his coastal area. Each
sub-area had the population of around 4,500 people. Stensvik illustrales the last stage of Aalto’s
urbanism. It was built, but not according to Aalto’s plan.

others not. To avoid any misunderstanding: Aalto’s works were not utopias, they
were realistic plans for settlements located in a definite area.
From the 1940s to the early 196Os, Aalto’s planning thought was attached to
the structure of the wood-processing industry: cellulose, pulp and paper
factories. Most of his experimental planning work was financed by the broad-
minded wood barons. In the avant garde circles, in the otherwise intellectually-
oppressive 1930s the match between a new environmental culture and the
modern industrialism was considered a new ideology for the young Republic.
In the 195Os, the situation started to become problematic for Aalto and others
sharing similar ideas. The country was in a state of “pushed” development and
all the available resources were pooled to finance and implement the ambitious
development programmes. The key word was “concentration”. The political
parties, from left to right wing, were connected with banks and construction
 The Alternative: Alvar Aalto’s Urban Plans. 1940-1970 19

Fig. 6. Tihese photographs show something about the essence of Aalto’s urban&n. (a) In the
Academic Bookstore, Aalto made an inside city in a cold country. Streets and blocks are made of
book Stands. The building is a popular meeting place. (b) In the rather small housing area for the
National IDensions Institute, Aalto had a chance to show some of the “forest town” ideas in practice.
ThLs area was under work at the same time as the Imatra Plan, in the Fifties. (c) The Suomenlinna
forfificafic m was built in several stages from the mid-l&h-century. These stoneworks are important
references when one studies Aalto’s works. Careful construction and good quality pays in the long
run. These works do not need urban renewal.
20 Jussi Raursi

firms. This did not leave space for alternative solutions because everybody
played the same game.
In the 1960s Aalto’s planning thought was - even in professional circles -
considered outmoded. In fact, Aalto was ahead of his time with his method and
with his works: in the Stensvik plan he had the intellectual courage to take a step
into new town planning principles. He anticipated the “post-industrial” society
by detaching his thinking from the old production structure and taking
“immaterial flows” - i.e. information - as crucial determinants of architecture
and planning.
Finland is now at the threshold of a new era. The traditional industries are
being restructured. Research and development on new technologies is changing
the anatomy of the country. Once again, the nation is experiencing rapid change.
Aalto’s way of putting questions is now just as immediate as it was in his own
time. Today, the opportunities for good or bad are far more effective. Aalto’s
method deserves a re-evaluation.

A SUMMARY OF AALTO’S PLANNING THOUGHT

We can now review the range of planning ideas developed by Alvar Aalto.
First Stage: Planning for the Wood Republic. Planning river valleys as cultural
and industrial entities; syncronising town and country into a novel type of
settlement form; introduction of public participation. [Kokemiiki River Valley
Plan (1940-1941)].
Second Stage: the optimism of the reconstruction period: expectations of a
reasonable land policy; municipally owned land as a reserve for future growth;
plans as “genetic codes” for changes in size and quality of settlements; the
“forest town”. [Reconstruction Plan for Rovaniemi (1944-1945); Master Plan
for Imatra (1947-1953)].
Third stage: critical planning for small settlements: protecting the local
community from sudden changes caused by rapid industrialisation; alternative
planning logic if compared with the mainstream; the break with the power
coalitions inherent in the public sector [7&e Regional Plan for Lapland
(1950-1955)].
Fourth stage: from material to immaterial flows: creating urban design for a
community based on information connections; abandoning the traditional grid
pattern in favour of terrestrial, organic patterns; detaching town planning from
traditional heavy industries [Stensvik Experimental Town (1964-1966);
Gammelbacka Experimental Town (1966-1970)].

BIBLIOGRAPHY
The main sources of this article are in the archives of Architecture Bureau Alvar Aalto & Co. These documents
are mainly unpublished.
There is a vast amount of literature on Aalto‘s architecture and design. ‘The reading list mentioned here
contains items that are interesting from the planning point of view.
Aalto, A., Zmatra, Yleisasemakaava. Imatra (contains an extensive summary in English), 1953.
Gutheim, F., Alvar Aalfo. Braziller Inc., New York, 1960.
Mikkola, K. (Editor) Genius Loci - Town and its Plan. In Commemoration of the 90th Birthday of Otto I.
Meurman-Rakennuskirja, Helsinki, 1980.
Neuenschwander, E. and C.. Atelier Alvar Aalto 19SO-19.51. Verlag fur Architektur, Erlenbach-Zurich, 1954.
Pearson, D., Alvar Aalto and the International Style. Whitney Library of Design. New York, 1978.
Quantrill, M. Alvar Aalto - A Crifical Study. Otava Publishing Company. Helsinki. 1983.
Rautsi, J., “Alvar Aalto’s Urban Plans 1940-1970”. (Transactions. The Record of Papers Presented to the
Royal Institute of British Architects. 9. pp. 48-61.) RIBA. London. 1986.
 The Alternative: Alvar Aalto’s Urban Plans, 1940-1970 21

Rautsi, J. and ElIilB, S., Planning Urban and Rural Areas in Finland. Government Printing Centre, Helsinki,
1983.
Schildt, G. (Editor) Sketches. MIT Press. (This is a translation of Aalto’s articles), 1978.
Virtanen, P.V. and Halme, P. (1983) Land Reforms in Finland. Helsinki: Ministry of the Environment.