“The main focus of the curatorial process was on identifying the stories the drawings tell, and conceal, and not the tangible reality they shaped” 

A major exhibition about the architectural drawings from the studio of the ‘Father of Modernism’ has opened in Berlin after being curated by a new Fellow of St John’s College.

‘Alvar Aalto in Germany: Drawing Modernism’ focuses on the German projects of Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (1898-1976), the Finnish pioneer of modern architecture and design whose work included buildings, furniture, textiles, glassware, sculptures and paintings.

Modernist architecture is a style of building dating from the early 20th century that emphasises function and streamlined form over ornamentation.

Presented in collaboration with the Alvar Aalto Foundation in Finland, the exhibition is curated by Dr Sofia Singler, who has joined St John’s as Architecture Fellow ahead of this academic year at Cambridge.

From 23 September at the Tchoban Foundation Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin, visitors can view more than 70 original drawings by Alvar Aalto, his wife Elissa Aalto (1922-1994) and their studio.

Dr Singler, who is Assistant Professor in Architecture and College Lecturer in Architecture, said: “This was the first time I have worked on an exhibition focused solely on drawings. No models, no photography – a somewhat rare limitation for an architecture show. The experience helped me re-approach modern architecture as a process rather than product.

“The main focus of the curatorial process was on identifying the stories the drawings tell, and conceal, and not the tangible reality they shaped. Many of the thoughts that arose from this selection process will no doubt seep into the design teaching I do at St John’s.” 

“The suite of drawings on display serves to ask complex questions about the meaning of local social, cultural, political and physical contexts in the production of modern architecture”

Spanning works from the 1950s, when Alvar was summoned to contribute to the vast reconstruction efforts that followed the Second World War, to the 1980s, when Elissa boldly brought to completion major projects that were left unfinished upon her husband’s death, the exhibition features original drawings of the studio’s 14 projects in Germany, both realised and unrealised.

The six projects that came to fruition comprise three elements: one pair each of churches, apartment blocks and cultural buildings. The eight unrealised plans, in turn, encompass major public programmes such as town halls, civic centres, master plans and offices.

The drawings chronicle the relationship Alvar fostered with Germany and its architectural culture, which was cultivated further by Elissa. In the post-war period Alvar Aalto Architects Ltd was heralded in Germany as a ‘humane’ exception to a more mechanised modernism that was based on fixed ideas rather than practical considerations. The promise of the studio’s softer genre of modernism was particularly favoured in light of the horrors associated with mechanisation after the war.

“The suite of drawings on display serves to ask complex questions about the meaning of local social, cultural, political and physical contexts in the production of modern architecture,” said Dr Singler.

“Because the exhibition focuses on a geographic area – rather than, say, a particular building type or decade – it helps us investigate what Germany and Germanness meant to the work of Aalto team members. This is an intriguing question to consider not least in light of the internationalising and universalising tendencies so commonly associated with modern architecture.”

“It has been challenging, thrilling and endlessly captivating to consider Aalto’s German projects” 

The exhibition is separated into themes, such as city-building, with ‘Natural and Civic Topographies’ exploring how studio members sought to ensure their German civic buildings and master plans grew organically from, and resonated with, their existing geographical and cultural contexts. ‘Projecting Identity’ interrogates how architectural form and urban space were employed to communicate a sense of local character to the world beyond.

Two further themes focus on architectural programmes and the challenges inherent in their design. ‘Boundaries of the Sacred’ charts how Studio Aalto’s two churches in Wolfsburg negotiate the relationship between the sacred and the profane, whereas ‘Humanising Standardisation’ documents a bid to subjugate theories of efficiency and optimisation to human comfort in the domestic context.

The early sketches and later drawings on display reveal that, for Studio Aalto, paper was the basic subsistence that kept alive the creative process, not art. Although beautiful, the visual appeal of the drawings is a by-product rather than an end goal.

Dr Singler said: “It has been challenging, thrilling and endlessly captivating to consider Aalto’s German projects. My prior research has focused heavily on Aalto’s, and my own, home context in Finland; researching the practice’s German drawings has enriched my understanding of the firm’s cosmopolitan orientation and the fluency with which different cultural influences were absorbed into its creative work.” 

The exhibition, which runs until 14 January 2024, has been made possible by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Impact Fund at the University of Cambridge. Co-sponsored by the Alvar Aalto Foundation in Finland and the Museum for Architectural Drawing, the exhibition patron is the Finnish Institute in Germany.

Studying Architecture at St John’s College

Published 22/9/2023

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