Villa Mairea was designed by Finnish modernist architect Alvar Aalto in 1938, and is situated in Noormarkku in Western Finland, at a beautiful location amongst pine trees. The clients of this luxurious summer house were Aalto’s long-time friends, an art lover, wealthy couple, Harry and Maire Gullichsen.
Aalto worked on this project together with his first wife and architect partner Aino Aalto, and the client Maire Gullichsen. It was a kind of experimental project for the trio, where they could try out new ideas and experiment freely with various materials.
And they did indeed; wood, stone, concrete, metal and textiles are used (seemingly) spontaneously throughout the building. Not surprising, the project went through a number of redesigns, even when already under construction, before taking its final shape.
Still, it bears the unmistakable features of Aalto’s humanist, nordic architecture, and it became an important milestone in the career of the great modernist designer.
Images: Wikipedia, Reddit, SkafurTour, villamairea.fi
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