Alvar Aalto

Date: 15 Oct – 8 Dec 2007
Venue: NUS Museum 
Free Admission

Architecture cannot save the world but it can set a good example, so said Alvar Aalto.

Guided by his philosophy of architecture’s “ulterior motive” in creating buildings as symbols of “the idea of creating paradise” for ordinary mortals, Aalto conceived designs for almost 100 one-family houses during his 55-year career as an architect from 1921 to 1976. More than half of these were realised. Yet, as much as he has achieved recognition within and beyond his home country, Finland, this aspect of his work receives little attention.

The exhibition then highlights 16 one –family houses from Terho Manner (1923) via the more renowned Villa Mairea (1939) and Muuratsalo Experimental House (1954) to Villa Skeppet from early 1970s.

Through these houses, Aalto’s architectural trajectory and its developments can be traced.

NUS Museum partners with the Department of Architecture at NUS to facilitate first-year students in interpreting and analysing Aalto’s practice in dialogue with other masters of modern architecture.

The exhibition is also held in conjunction with this year’s Singapore Design Festival and is co-presented by NUS Museum, the Embassy of Finland and the Alvar Aalto Foundation.

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