Villa Mairea - Alvar Aalto
Donnell Garden - Thomas Church
Assessment 2 Lenny Ellis / 12928103 Architecture and Landscape Cultures
Donnell Garden
Villa Mairea
Biomorphic
Curving Wooden
Natural
Iconic Evoking
Undulating Retreat
Rolling
Timber
Biology
Sensory
Regarded Curvaceous
Submerged
Unfettered
Materiality Rhythms
Foreshadowed
Walkway
Sculpture Complicating
Continuity
Unpredictable
Alvar Aalto’s Villa Mairea brings the beauty of nature into the safety and order of the home, Thomas Church’s Donnell Garden brings the safety and order of the home into the natural environment…
Mid-century
Landscape
Freeform
Rigid Form Continuity Wooden Verticality Wooden Walkway
Outdoor
Verticality
Juxtaposed
Complex Form Unpredictable Curvaceous Curving Rolling Freeform Sculpture Undulating Complicating Unfettered Juxtaposed
Composed
Living/Organic Biology Biomorphic Landscape Outdoor Verticality Wooden Timber Complicating Rhythms Evoking Regarded
Static Materiality Wooden Iconic Timber Mid-century Regarded
Villa Mairea Villa Mairea was designed by Alvar Aalto in Finland and built as a summer home for the Gullichson family in 1938. The design is based in the Finnish cultural tradition of environmental responsibility and Aalto’s personal passion for living close to the earth.
Environmental Composition Alvar Aalto was given absolute freedom in the design of the Villa Mairea. This allowed him to resolve his rationalist manifesto, which is demonstrated in his use of biodynamic forms to create shared spaces, representative of the family dynamic. This also allowed him to move away from the formalities of historical facades, and really innovate, with nature as the catalyst.
At that time, Aalto also was greatly influenced by the recent design and construction of Fallingwater, by Frank Lloyd Wright, and even wanted to move this house to the water to emulate the simplicity and emphasis on environment found at the site of Fallingwater.
Finnish Culture
California Culture
Finland has always had a strong environmental social conscience, and educated from generation to generation how important the natural world is and how and why the human condition is linked so tightly to the natural environment.
California culture has a strong history based in innovation and disruption. The leisure culture in and around the valley is also very prevalent. Discovering how to integrate the new within to better resolve the traditional.
Alvar Aalto was raised with these ideals and very adamantly encouraged building naturally by conveying the very essence of the natural (and not overdoing it). He felt that he true objective of architects was this, because “everything superfluous turns ugly with time.� (Aalto, 2005)
Thomas Church was a very down to earth personality, but also harboured a passion for innovation. He desired to create landscape as a place to live in; something that feels more akin to an outdoor room, wishing that we could literally live in the garden. (Church, 1995)
Stone walls and wood panels
Materiality Villa Mairea has strong representational emphasis on wooden columns, panels and natural binding materials in the interior and exteriors that draw on the verticality of its heavily wooded natural perimeter. The internal main staircase and structural supports take on an almost vernacular quality with
The structures implanted among the Donnell garden also attempt to bring the strongest elements of the garden environment into the interior with the use of stone and timber panels to isolate spaces. Large panes of sliding glass span the southern exterior with with minimal framing or obstruction to expand the views and invite the gardens environs to the interior spaces. These spaces are merely based on the natural rooms that Thomas Church created in the landscape that surrounds the built structures. The real living space at Donnell garden is the garden and pool environment itself.
Wrapped double column
unconventionally crafted joints and bindings. Many of the vertical elements are paired to imply an organic density similar to that of the surrounding forest glen.
Gardens While the environment diers greatly between Mairea and Donnell, The two share a strong natural aesthetic and connection to landscape.
Sheltered by large trees, the natural surrounds of the Donnell gardens is comprised of plants native to the California climate, oak trees, strategically placed ground cover. Mairea, located in an alpine glen in rural Finland, gives host to surrounding Finnish fir and teak.
Thomas Church introduced a distinct variance from the traditional gardens. that ties directly to the environment surrounding the Donnell gardens which is littered with stones throughout the natural landscape.
Aalto designed the Villa Mairea home as well as the landscape for the villa, and made a point to incorporate the landscape into the building design himself. Thomas Church, on the other hand didn’t design the internal structures himself, but because of the clear definition of boundaries and of the landscape design (and its establishment well before buildings were designed or constructed), the gardens were a major influence in the architectural design and collaboration.
Kidney Pools The most evident link between these two bodies or work is the organic shape of the kidney pool. This design, first implemented by Aalto in Villa Mairea, was a modern simplification of a natural pool with a curved or graded surface and organic edge. This was in sharp contrast to the more common traditional designs, composed of simple geometric units, common in pools of the time. In abstracting a natural body of water into a beautifully simplified organic bowl-like shape, Aalto and later Church were able to create an object that famously embodied the modern design aesthetic. This relationship implies that design is not an isolated exercise. I would argue that every idea comes from another inspiration. Whether it’s literal and obvious or abstract and somewhat objective. In this case, nature inspired Fallingwater and Finnish culture, the combination of which inspired Alvar Aalto to design an organic pool base on abstracting a natural body of water. Then Thomas Church found inspiration to further simplify the shape of what would be referred to as the kidney shaped pool, and inspire a new style of Modernism in California. To take this even further, we might even consider the effect of drought in Califonia years later, to inspire the skateboarding community to utilise this pool design to later be used in skate parks all over the world. One long string of iteration and innovation popularised by the application of these two very aspiring individuals, Alvar Aalto and Thomas Church.
“The more social the art - and architecture is one of the most social of arts - the more collective the spirit, the participation of the environment and the whole epoch, in the work it involves. The striving to give one’s best can come to fruition only in these conditions.” -Alvar Aalto
Bibliography 2.bp.blogspot.com. viewed 1 June 2017, <http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gO8qfJrpPNw/T2AuKcw4gvI/ AAAAAAAAAEs/XW45_UaaYng/s1600/axo.jpg>. 2.bp.blogspot.com. viewed 1 June 2017, <http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_FOFmh6MNZeY/TReyd2K12fI/ AAAAAAAAABc/cPAF6s2cIaA/s1600/East%2BElevation.jpg>. Alvar Aalto, Aurora Quito, May 2002, (english translation) William Bain, Loft publications, pg 22-27 Aalto, A., Jetsonen, J. and Jetsonen, S. 2005, Alvar Aalto apartments, 1st edn, Rakennustieto, [Helsinki, Finland]. Alvaraaltoresearch.fi. viewed 1 June 2017, <http://www.alvaraaltoresearch.fi/files/8113/6032/0312/ Mairea.png>. Church, T.D., Hall, G.M. and Laurie, M., 1995. Gardens are for People. Univ of California Press. Firestone, R., Mark English, A., Mark English, A., Mark English, A., Mark English, A. and Mark English, A. 2017, Karin Payson: Architectural Practice Part 1 | The Architects' Take, Thearchitectstake.com. viewed 1 June 2017, <http://thearchitectstake.com/interviews/karin-paysonarchitectural-practice-part-1/>. Images.adsttc.com. viewed 1 June 2017, <http://images.adsttc.com/media/images/5037/e770/28ba/ 0d59/9b00/039f/medium_jpg/stringio.jpg?1414231232>. Ideasgn.com. viewed 1 June 2017, <http://ideasgn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Villa-Mairea-byAlvar-Aalto-006.jpg>. Treib, M., Church, T. and Eckbo, G. 2005, The Donnell and Eckbo gardens, William Stout Publishers, San Francisco. V-aline.com. viewed 1 June 2017, <http://www.v-aline.com/upload/1.bp.blogspot.com/TcZQ5OiP7Gg/TYbM5KTYfmI/AAAAAAAAAjs/SwPLq-mPMBE/s1600/Scan_20110321_0001.JPG>.