Pornnapas Rittiwut (Pim) Pornnapas.r@cuinda.com
Trailing Our Steps: Investigating the Transitions of Humanism and Spatial Fluctuations through Architecture in Finland and Norway
Through the Lense of Humanistic Approach
The idea of humanism as a secular belief in human capibility to constructing a better built environment for humanity is a defining feature of Scandinavian architecture. Since the prominent introduction of this intellectual movement in the field of architecture by the projects of Alvar Aalto, the society started to embrace and improve upon the idea to provide for better living conditions.
The following decades after the popularization of his works were spent constructing better humanist ideals that later introduced Finnish and Norwegian architecture to the forefront of the design field. By observing and investigating Scandivian architecture throughout the history, we can trace how humanism and architecture develop alongside each other as a supporting infrastructure to the development of our built environment.
A Well-Tempered Environment for Humans
When looking at the context of Finland and Norway, both countries makes perfect sense as a site to develop humanist architecture. Both countries provide a well-tempered environment where nature and built environments are closely intertwined. The cool temperature and rich landscape of pines, birches, spruces, and lakes enable a variety of technological advancements and resources to emerge as a part of architectural developments which assist people’s lives to become better.
The countries differentiate at the landscape variations - the mountainous terrain for Norway and the flatter land for Finland - which affect the difference in the level of homogeneity in its populations. This creates the stark contrast in the later developments in the humanistic approach between Finnish and Norwegian architecture as their economic improvements enable the differences in homogeneity to come through in architecture. The countries contain every aspect of infrastructure for architecture to act as a tool to negotiate the boundary between human, nature, and technology.
Hello World, This is us: An Introduction of Us to the Nature
The introduction of the humanism in architecture began in Saynatsalo Town Hall designed by Alvar Aalto completed in 1952.The town hall stands as a tall red brick fortress in the middle of Saynatsalo’s low rise community and Finland’s nature.
With a truthful homage to Italian philosophy and architecture during the classical period, it is one of the architecture that marks the beginning of humanist architecture in Finland. The town hall embraces human experiences and interactions in the space as a core part of the ideal as it links its programs and elements to entwine humans to nature through the implementation of attentive architecture.
source: https://divisare.com/projects/317793-alvar-aalto-nico-saieh-saynatsalo-town-hall-1951
The building form of Saynatsalo Town Hall as a fan-shaped plaza is inspired by the Italian typology Piazza del Campo in Sienna with the uneven, tailored, and colored bricks resembling its origin in Italy. The building marks a shift from functionalist to humanistic approach in Alvar Aalto’s career as his work began to entwine itself closely to the nature and human.
The town hall in particular displays its emphasis on the connection to the nature through its various uses of natural materials such as stone, vines, and wooden furniture to improve the user experiences along with an emphasis on the landscape views to connect human to the surrounding nature. It also displays the capability in humanistic designs through the concept of Total Work of Art as Aalto designed stair rails, door handles, chairs, and furniture according to the available materials to enhance the comfort in human lives.
The development of Saynatsalo Town Hall is a testament to the everlasting connection to the surroundings and the success to negotiate nature and technology in humanism. Through the progression of time and society, its legacies on the community begin to unravel. The natural landscape around the building is preserved to provide the later generations of a holistic experience.
Red brick typology began to emerge around the town as a contribution to the community’s infrastructure. And Aalto’s design become popularized as one of Finnish defining characteristics as it provides comfort and embrace the traditional materials. As we involve the things that surround us in the design, they come back to embrace us.
From Past to Present, From Us to Them: The Development of Humanistic Approach in Architecture
The development of human as a homogenous collective in a contained neighbourhood transferred into a metropolitan and contemporary context as Aalto University is established as a changing architectural response to the foundations laid by Alvar Aalto. Aalto University is located in Otaniemi in the middle of Helsinki as a merger of three universities. The university therefore illustrates how the idea of humanism has transformed from forging a connection between us and surroundings into promoting the wellbeings of human and environment through materiality, technology, and sensory experience.
Starting with the oldest establishment in the university the Undergraduate Center, the building was designed by Alvar Aalto and is still in operation today. It meticulously embodies the classical philosophy of humanism through the historical references and focus on appreciation on art and craftsmanship. The iconic character of the building, the Roman amphitheater, is a tribute to the birthplace for public activites in the classical period alongside the Roman air vent from the temple fronts design which honours Roman educational center.
The building also contributes to the conversation of the relationship between human, art, and technology as it features locally produced ceramic tiles and brick staircase - giving the building a connection, an artificial one, to the environment and a character of Aalto’s work.
As architecture moves towards with time, it reconsiders humanism as the connection that humans can provide to the environment. Although Aalto’s works succeed in bridging the psychological gap between us and the surroundings, they do not take into account the rift that we create in the nature through our material juxtapositions. Väre, a new academic center designed by Verstas Architects takes on the endeavour to establish architecture as a medium to promote the wellbeing of the earth while blending into the existing context laid by Aalto’s work.
Väre Building in Aalto University
Väre embodies the concept of sustainability in the elements that humanistic approach previously used to connect the environment to us; light, facade, and texture. It has more than 760 solar panels and underground thermal vaults for cooling and heating mechanism as a way to reduce the carbon footprint on the environment.
The materials in the building are environmentally friendly as they are water cleanable surface and energy friendly texture. The reusable and interchangeable partitions are used for separations to promote sustainability. The ceiling also allows an optimum amount of daylight to provide for lighting inside the main hall and inspire the philosophical milieu through the ambience. Väre reinterprets these architectural elements to ensure that humanity will continue to coexist with the ecosystem and the communities.
Woven into the Fabric: Connecting Humanistic Approaches to the Collective
The town keeps on growing and people keep on changing.
Like Aalto University grows from a building into a small town, a city has to bloom with us. A city, as a record of the development of urban humanism, narrates the history in the way we use such approach to assimilate the urban environment. We weave system, symbolism, and physicality into the landscape and create an urban fabric as a garment to develop humanity. Helsinki and Oslo therefore becomes one of the few well-woven piece of clothes where the architects discern the urban fabrica as a social welfare to improve quality of life - and consequently advance human dignity.
In order for us to discuss Helsinki as a humanistic city, the social context of Finland should be mentioned to give context to their architecture. Finland develops itself as a socially homogenous nation due to its geopolitical system since the 20th century. In order to protect its autonomy as a neighbouring country of Russia in that period as a flatland country, its political structure was redefined continuously in order to unify its ideological divides and respond the wars that threatened to rip the nation apart. This trend of connecting the contrast continues to run Finland as a unitary state - resulting in the citizens embracing the uniformity its political system acquires up until today.
With the functional tax management of Finnish government system, the tax collected from the citizen is put into developing social welfare programs as a service to their citizens. Helsinki urban fabric becomes one of the amenities for the Finnish citizens enhancing their quality of life and dignity as a human and a social being.
This involves looking at one of the most iconic public infrastructure Central Oodi Library to observe how the humanistic approach to architecture is developed to accustomed to the context - being the urban environment.
Central Oodi Library as the center of Helsinki activities is a direct contribution to the construction of Helsinki urban fabric. The design of public programs such as library, crafting workshops, cafes, and lingering space allows urban life to infuse into the building seamlessly. The structure also opens up to the community through the unfolding of the canopy and the terrace. The canopy space on the ground floor of the Oodi Library unlatches itself from the surrounding flat landscape to provide a symbolic and physical openness to the public. The conglomeration of the terrace area also contributes as a massive addition to the public space.
The building stands as a representation of humanistic system through the implementation of the democratic and state-of-art space. During the 21st century, the popularity of the library typology in Finland has been on the decline as the space fails to allocate the resources and space to the citizens. However, Oodi reinterprets the role of library in Helsinki’s contemporary context and recognizes its role as a monument to knowledge and civil society. The government therefore devotes the latest technology into the programs and sustainability aspects of the building to involve itself and prepare to adapt into the future of humanity.
The building also acts as a power hierarchical symbolism to show the advancement in Finnish philosophical predicament. Finland has an existing notion of the parliament as the representative of the political system in the heart of Helsinki - a governing body amidst its citizens. This meant the city holds the status of the political body among the citizens which contradicts the embodiment of equal and fair space for everyone. The juxtaposition of Central Oodi Library
The components of the building contributes to the national identity as a way of improving the concept of self in the citizens. Embueing nationalistic ideals in a contemporary context concerns on promoting self-actualization, selfworth, and creating somewhere a person feel belong to in a society.
Central Oodi Library therefore uses the modern form to interpret the landscape of Finland onto the form of the building. Looking from the street level, the building appears as a wave as a symbol to the undulating wave arouond Finland. The facade embodies the sky and cloud of Helsinki. Its mountainous shape borrows an inspiration from the granite residue as one of Finnish geological characteristics. Lastly, its plank-covered cladding is made from spruce trees as a homage to its nature and embedding natural beauty to the landscape.
In Discussion With Ourselves: Finding a Place for the Past to Exist inside Us
Where does the past exist when the society already moved forward with the present and the future? Humanistic approach prompts us to fail to remember what we had as it designs for humans to prepare for the future. The majority of the humanistic architecture that we explored during the trip attempt to dismantle the status quo of living standards and reshape the spatial fluctuations to welcome the incoming generations.
However, it raises the dilemma that asks whether if the existing qualities should be diminished by time or should be prolonged to preserve the history of us. AMOS Rex, one of the rehabilitation projects attempts to answer this question and reset the narrative of the existing architecture in the humanistic approach.
Do the past still exist - or is it just a memory between us?
AMOS Rex is established based on the principle to prolong the spatial fluctuations through the reactivation of historical architecture and implementation of artistic dilemmas. The spatial fluctuations around the site alludes to the lives and activities surrounding Lasipalatsi Square along with the rehabilitations throughout its lifetime that change its course of actions.
Although the square was erected as a temporary complex for the visitors from Olympic, the square became an integral part of Helsinki commercial district with its location and programs. As time passes, the community slowly erased its original life from their memories and was left unrepaired for almost a decade - in need of a restoration.
AMOS Rex therefore serves as a reactivation of the spatial reactivation in Lasipalatsi Square as its existence revitalizes the lives around it. The above-ground portion functions as an urban park as the pertruded cavelike structure and the undulating landscape invites public activities into the space.
The museum also moves its exhibition programs underground to maintain the spatial movements in the plaza while setting a unique identity to the theme of the artistic dilemma it provides. The underground museum set us into considering the relationship between humans and ‘the ground’ as our existence changes the earth. The circulation takes us through the development of geological attributes throughout the history of humans - examining the coexistence and collisions of two identities.
AMOS Rex becomes preservation of historical site through the mean of placemaking as a way to trace and prolong cultural development - in hopes to inform the future generations of human interventions in the development of Humanism.
To Exist: A Dilemma of Humanistic Ideals in Architecture
“If you remember me, I don’t care if everyone else forgets”
- Haruki Murakami
How about memories? In the discussion of humanist ideals where we strive to achieve physical connections to the surrounding world of the past, present and future, where does the intangibility exist?
Architecture creates spaces. Good architecture creates functions. Great architecture creates memories.
Peter Zumthor and his recent work Allmannajuvet Zinc Mine Museum attempt create a place for the furtherment of humanistic ideals as the capability that us human can achieve with our limitations and opportunities. Zumthor perceives architecture as a tangible chance to prove the potential of humans to truly live within this world. His architectural principle revolves around the construction of experiences and memories to the users and let us, even for a single moment, live in the present time.
“Memories
and thoughts age,
do But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade”
The museum transports us back to the present through the careful articulation of the space juxtaposed into the natural environment of Finland. A newly established series of black buildings blend into the mountaineous terrain of green luscious forest like they have existed there for a long time. As we enter the museum, the architecture greets us with a direct light pointing us toward the history of the mine; the tools, the books, the document. We trace our way through the small intimate dark hallway by our fingers and eyes, touching and seeing the unfamiliar space. Then, we found a portrait. A portrait of trees, rivers, sounds, buildings, and nature is facing us, and asking us to welcome it into our memory.
The experience inside the building was once in a lifetime memory in a human’s life. But what did it cost us? With Zumthor striving for perfection in his architecture, he insisted on certain materials and environmental conditions to resemble his vision.
Peter Zumthor architecture is what humans strive towards. And the endeavor to achieve Allmannajuvet Zinc Mine Museum ask humanity to challenge the constructions, emotions and ambitions of humans through architecture. While the memory is an important part of humanity to drive us forward, should we sacrifice the humanistic development to satisfy our ambitions through the consumption of materials that will cost a future to us?
At last,
to know that you are fighting for the betterment of something, whether for human, for architecture, for society, or for yourselves, is what makes us live another day
just as people
As I walk myself through the development of humanistic approach and question its ideology, one thing becomes certain, live.
At first, we built things around us for it to be with us in that moment, and in a glimpse of us in the future. Then, the future gets wider. The future has nature and us coexisting peacefully together. We start to think if we can hold each other’s hands in the future - existing as a collective with the nature and for our dreams to finally come true. Thinking about the future then makes us remember the past. We value the past as we learn from it. At last, we come back to the present, and we make it the most beautiful moment in life.
Humanistic architecture is a way for humans to live in a moment, to paint the future, to warm us up with memories, and to feel alive again and again.
