Ambiguous Rationality: The Structural Design of Alvar Aalto
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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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en
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21
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Architectural Research in Finland, Volume 6, issue 1, pp. 146-166
Abstract
Unlike "humanizing", "expressive forms", and "phenomenological significance of materials", Aalto's structural conception has been seldom recognized as masterly touches and even misunderstood by some theorists as "a-tectonic" and "irrational." Since initiating practice, he had developed a "surface + frame" composite as a structural solution. Then a "thick partition" formed with ambient spaces, became a basis to fully explore in spatial, lighting, and signifying dimensions, breaking a new path long before the "skin + bone" prototype of modern architecture received sublation from the younger generation. This paper chooses three built churches throughout Aalto's career for a serial case study and reveals, through analyses from drawings to actual construction, how the composite system acts as a reasonable stress system and construction basis, participating in controlling the force system and force flows, how the "thick partition" mediates the spatial flows and directs the light-shadow interplay, and how such webs of significance have transcended the high modern architecture.Description
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Xie, F 2023, 'Ambiguous Rationality: The Structural Design of Alvar Aalto', Architectural Research in Finland, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 146-166. https://doi.org/10.37457/arf.130447