Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was a Finnish architect and designer. His work includes architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware, as well as sculptures and paintings. He never regarded himself as an artist, seeing painting and sculpture as "branches of the tree whose trunk is architecture." Aalto's early career ran in parallel with the rapid economic growth and industrialization of Finland during the first half of the 20th century. Many of his clients were industrialists, among them the Ahlström-Gullichsen family, who became his patrons. The span of his career, from the 1920s to the 1970s, is reflected in the styles of his work, ranging from Nordic Classicism of the early work, to a rational International Style Modernism during the 1930s to a more organic modernist style from the 1940s onwards.
Aalto in 1960
Auditorium of the Viipuri Municipal Library in the 1930s
Alvar Aalto Studio, Helsinki (1954–56)
Alvar Aalto Studio, Helsinki (1954–55)
Nordic Classicism was a style of architecture that briefly blossomed in the Nordic countries between 1910 and 1930.
Stockholm Public Library (1920–28) by Gunnar Asplund.
Copenhagen Police Headquarters (1924) by Hack Kampmann.
Parliament of Finland, Helsinki (1926–1931) by Johan Sigfrid Sirén
Haugesund City Hall (1922–1931) by Gudolf Blakstad and Herman Munthe-Kaas