The Paimio Sanatorium is the founding project of the work of Alvar Aalto, one of the most important in his career as an architect, town planner and designer. It marks the shift of Aalto, a recognised figure of the Nordic Classisime - along with Erik Bryggman and the Swedes Gunnar Asplund and Sven Markelius - towards Modernism, the International style, whose dogmas were determined by the "Charter of Athens" in 1939, under the impetus of Le Corbusier.
The influence of the German Bauhaus architects is also of prime importance: the appeal of the straightforward line, simplicity of form, the desire to integrate all technical progress to place the individual at the centre of the relationship with the building or, more broadly, the urban space.
The Sanatorium of Paimio was built with the participation of 48 municipalities and four cities. At the time, it was the largest establishment of its kind. Its fundamental principle: the harmony of the place with nature - it is built in the middle of a thick forest which, thanks to a very innovative system, allows the fresh air entering the rooms to be tempered, at an angle, through the sashes of the large windows.
Alvar Aalto (1898-1976)
Modèle 41 dit Paimio
Estimation : 15000 / 20000 €
All the rooms, limited to two or three patients, overlook the gardens and the trees. The terraces are wide, the circulation is fluid. This atmosphere can be found inside the building where the perfect union of resting and working areas reigns. It is made up of three parts: in the first, largest part, are the rooms and the rest areas. The second houses the dining rooms, libraries, lounges and areas games, as well as analysis and operating rooms. The third one, the kitchen, bakery and the technical rooms.
Doctors and nursing staff are housed in separate residences but integrated into the place. Everything is done to make the convalescent, the patient, forget the sometimes frightening world of a hospital. Artificial light is discreet, subdued, the invisible heating, integrated into the ceiling, diffuses a soft heat.
Alvar Aalto (1898-1976)
Modèle 41 dit Paimio
Estimation : 6000 / 9000 €
The corridors are wide and illuminated by bay windows. Everything is done to reduce the boundaries between inside and outside. What makes the Paimio Sanatorium unique and innovative is the furniture and objects that have been designed by Aalto for the place.
A whole series of armchairs - including the masterpiece "Armchair 41" made of glued laminated birch wood - are available and curved, tubular metal beds, wardrobes, lighting systems, all today still references in the world of design.
Aalto has always taken care to create furniture elements, tables, seats, lamps, as so many microarchitectures, in close relation with the building to which they were destined. The Paimio Sanatorium brings together all of Aalto's architectural concepts, his approach to town planning that was both close and far removed from the radical modernists, and his philosophy of life, which prefigured his work and made it one of the richest of the 20th century.
