Roger Connah. Finland: Modern Archi

Roger Connah. Finland: Modern Architectures in History. London: Reaktion, 2005. Pp. 284, illus. $29.95, paper.
While Finnish desire for political autonomy began in the mid-nineteenth century, it was with the Finnish Pavilion for the 1900 Paris World Fair, by the young architectural firm of Gesellius, Lindgren, and Saarinen, that the Finns found in architecture a social and political vehicle parallel in importance to music, literature, and art. In promoting and serving a nationalistic agenda, national romanticism as this architecture was termed, embodied the concurrent Karelianism witnessed in the compositions of Jean Sibelius and the paintings of Akseli Gallen-Kallela and Ferdinand von Wright. From these nationalistic impulses, architecture, and particularly modern architecture, would help shape and reshape Finnish identity over the next century.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, modernism, with its promise of social change and technical progress, became inextricably intertwined with the emergence of an independent Finland and the ensuing growth, urbanization, and industrialization of its then rural society. Over the course of the century, Finland provided unparalleled contributions to modern architecture as architects actively contributed to the definition and identity of the Finnish nation. In presenting this unique cultural phenomenon, Roger Connah's Finland: Modern Architectures in History, provides an important contribution to studies on modernism as well as twentieth-century Finnish architecture.
In contrast to that of her Nordic neighbors, the history of Finnish modern architectural development has resulted in remarkable scholarly activity over the past three decades: Asko Salokorpi's concise Modern Architecture in Finland (1970); Vilhelm Helander and Simo Rista's general overview, Modern Architecture in Finland (1987); Scott Poole's interpretive and well-illustrated, The New Finnish Architecture (1992); Malcolm Quantrill's comprehensive study, Finnish Architecture and the Modernist Tradition (1995); and the Museum of Finnish Architecture's elegantly illustrated exhibition catalogue, 20th Century Architecture: Finland (2000) with significant accompanying essays and period polemical writings. While each volume has a particular strength, missing within this corpus of study is a critical inspection of the impact of modernism on Finnish architectural development that transcends the current canonic perspective. In this, Connah's Finland: Modern Architectures in History fills a necessary void.
Educator, author, and critic, Roger Connah is a most likely scholar to engage in this critical inquiry. His production on Finnish architecture is as extensive as it is provocative: from Writing Architecture: Fantomas Fragments Fictions; An Architectural Journey Through the zoth Century (1989), which examines the ideas and work of Reima Pietila; to his critical assessments, The End of Finnish Architecture (1994), and Sa[l]vqged Modernism: Re-inventing Finnish Architecture (1999); to his evocative look at Finland's architectural grandmaster
Aaltomania (2001); and finally, his review of contemporary architectural practitioners in 40/40: Young Architects from Finland (2002). Coupled with the breadth and depth of Connah's writings is his role as an intellectual enfant terrible, consistently engaged in a serious questioning of the interpretational hegemony surrounding the established view of modern Finnish architectural history.
Connah, while assessing the work of the more preeminent architects-Eliel Saarinen, Alvar Aalto, and Reima Pietila, among others-articulates the important contributions of less familiar figures in the development of modernism to advance Finnish society and architecture. The writings of architects Gustav Strengell and Sigurd Frosterus as well as the progressive work of Selim Lindqvist pushed architects to move beyond the anachronistic and idiosyncratic expression of national romanticism toward a rational and international architecture based on contemporary needs. In the 19205 and early '305, Finland's Italian and Swedish influenced classicism was transformed into austere white streamlined forms by Martti Valikangas and Erik Btyggman, a transformation vigorously supported in architect Hilding Ekelund's writings.
As Aalto begins his evolution into a dominant international figure, the work of Erkki Huttunen, RE. Blomstedt, and Vaino Vahakallio contributed significantly to the expanding body of continentally inspired avant-garde works. As important as the visual power of modernism was in expressing the modernity of the young nation, so also was its appropriation of the "official" architecture of Finland's progressive social programs and policies exemplified by the contemporaneous buildings for education, housing, and health care. But, Connah notes, it was Aalto who was moving away from modernism toward a more personal, organic, and expressive language, a move that eventually marginalized him within the profession.
Reeling from the deprivations and strife of the war, the nation focused on extensive refugee re-housing and post-war reconstruction efforts. While architects engaged in using serial production to meet these needs, the white machine imagery of the 19305 gave way to an enriched palette of materials. Resulting from war-related material shortages and concern for using Mediterranean-inspired forms and materials in the harsh Scandinavian climate, brick and wood became the architectural tender of the day. Yet, the elemental, program-based, formal ordering associated with modernist architecture continued as the primary mode of exterior expression.
The post-war years were the "golden age" or "banquet years" of Finnish modernism, a result of the regional reinvigoration of modern imagery witnessed in the work of Aalto, Aarne Ervi, Viljo Reveil, and Heikki and Kaija Siren. For the international architectural community, this work potently symbolized an essential Finnishness revealed through architecture. But a two-fold reaction was occurring to these sensitively sited forest works executed in their red brick and wood vocabulary. First, led by architect/theorist Aulis Blomstedt, was a move to a more rational constructivism influenced by Mies van der Rohe. The austere, minimalist works of Blomstedt, Kirmo Mikkola, Juhani Pallasmaa, Kristian Gullichsen, and Erkki Kairamo represented a reaction to Aalto's work as well as the golden age's restrained romanticism. second was a concurrent period of political and social militancy wherein youth felt that modernism and its wider social programs remained unfulfilled, and the work of the '505 and '6os seemed increasingly irrelevant.
At this time, Connah notes, the Finnish Society of Architects (SAFA) and its publication Arkkitebti, coupled with the Museum of Finnish Architecture-with its state-funded traveling exhibitions and publications-codified an interpretational hegemony over what was to be considered the proper image for and expression of Finnish architecture. In contrast, the designs of Aarno Ruusuvuori, Reima and Raili Pietila, and Juha Leiviskä indicate the true diversity and richness of contemporaneous work. Ruusuvuori's exploration of the poetics of materials and methods of production contrasted dramatically with Pietilä's metaphorical and expressionistic works. In going his own direction, Pietila, like Aalto, would be marginalized professionally. Later, Leiviskä's rational yet exquisite and lyrical light-filled interiors would influence an emerging generation through its expressive spatial and formal language.
Post-modernism was a movement not well received in Finland yet it informed critical thinking about architecture. The work of Jyrki Tasa, Reijo Jallinoja, and Kai Wartiainen responds to the post-modern critique concerning modernism's reductive quality through incorporation of associative forms and spaces. But it was the projects of MONARK and Heikkinen & Komonen that expanded and explored this critique, and reforged an expressive and activated modernism. Now at the beginning of the twenty-first century and as seen throughout Scandinavia, a stylistic authority informs Finnish architectural direction. Today an elegantly ubiquitous architecture of material polish and careful articulation is experienced the world over and is exemplified in Finland by the corporate complexes of Sonderlund & Siikala and Helin & Siitonen.
Finland: Modern Architectures in History is the necessary critical examination of the evolution of modernism in Finnish architecture with its essential role in shaping national identity. While conventional when compared to the tone of his earlier writings, Connah's systematic interweaving of the political, social, cultural, and artistic milieux transforms the narrative into an engaging journey over Finland's twentieth-century architectural landscape and its emergence as a modern nation.