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page105from Nordic Architects Writes
Finnish Introduction
Anni Vartola
The Mythology of Essentiality
The austere national character of the Finns
and the severe Finnish cultural climate have produced splendid modern
architecture and cultivated a number of admirably skilled architects. Finland
has not, however, provided a particularly favourable substrate for cultivating
intellectual discussion among architects. One of the many legends cherished by
the Finns is a statement attributed to Bertolt Brecht, which describes the
Finns as “the only people in the world who can be silent in two languages”.
No
wonder then that Alvar Aalto’s principle of not using paper for anything but
designing has become an unwritten rule.1 Any architects worth their salt who
follow the path indicated by Aalto prefer to write their “poems in sand”2 and
say what they have to say in their buildings. Finnish architectural debate has
focus mainly on practical matters in its rather limited discourse: publication
of new designs and new buildings, analysis of topical architectural phenomena
from the viewpoint of national aims, and the status of architects and
architecture in the march of overall progress through joint action and
solidarity.
Reima
Pietilä, one of Finland’s most idiosyncratic architects and productive writers,
wrote about this in an article entitled “Why Architects Prefer Not to Write”3
and gave eight reasons for Finnish architects’ apparently poor literary ability
and lack of interest in writing. The article was published in one of the
principle forums for architectural debate in Finland, Arkkitehti (The Finnish
Architectural Review), founded in 1930 and one of the oldest architectural
journal in the world still published. Pietilä’s polemical article was a
response to an idea proposed by the editor, Pekka Laurila, to provide a special
“Apropos” ccolumn for the discussion of topical architectural issues in direct,
everyday language, but Pietilä did not hold out a great deal of hope for the
success of this new discussion forum.
According
to him, the reason for literary inaction on the part of the profession was not
just the lack of column inches, or architects’ temporary, perhaps even general,
distaste for writing; as Laurila had assumed in his proposal, there were far
more serious reasons. According to Pietilä, things like the gulf of
non-communication that had separated one generation of architects from another
due to the Second World War, the fact that the basic training was entirely
non-written, the cult of self-satisfied speechlessness, the difficulty of
understanding the concept of architecture, the fear of one’s peers, and a distinct
neurosis about theory were all obstacles to unrestricted polemic repartee among
architect.
Pietilä
pointed out that architect’s university education was focused on technical
performance and did not encourage debate. This, according to Pietilä, had led
to
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Paula Noronen
Yökoulun Pieni Kauhukäsikirja
kuvitus
Kati Närhi
Tammi
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Ruoka
Kakkua pullaa, leipää ja
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