Stora Enso building plans stir up critics of Alvar Aalto

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The plans reported yesterday that Stora Enso wishes to replace the marble exterior of its office building close to Helsinki's Market Square brought a conflicting response from members of the public who wrote in in response to the request for comments that was published in Helsingin Sanomat (and also on these pages).
      In the view of several respondents, the internationally-renowned architect Alvar Aalto has been raised to God-like status in spite of some abundantly-obvious design gaffes in his career.
      As was probably only to be expected, the call for comments brought out the Aaltophobes and those who feel the entire building would be better off being dynamited into oblivion rather than covered in white granite to replace the warped and decaying marble tiles.
     
There were also calls for a red-brick cladding, red granite, or any other material that would make the building - seen by many as an eyesore - stand out less from its surroundings. One correspondent suggested camouflage as a last resort, and another said that any change would be an improvement on a structure that was so fundamentally ugly.
      On the other hand, there were those Aaltophiles who charged that it would be a cultural crime of the highest order to change the original white marble.
     
There was criticism, too, of the fanatical attitude shown by the Alvar Aalto Foundation, which has stolidly opposed any alterations to the architect's original vision.
      The entire case is beginning to resemble the furore that earlier surrounded similar plans for Aalto's Finlandia Hall, where the marble tiling proved unsuitable for the harsh Finnish climate and began to pose a risk to life and limb as well as being an aesthetic embarrassment.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Stora Enso wants to replace marble cladding on main building with granite (16.3.2005)

Helsingin Sanomat