‘Interconnected Groups’: Alvar Aalto’s Competition for the Pohjola Office Building, Helsinki, 1964-65

Abstract

This article analyses the Alvar Aalto office’s competition entry for the Pohjola Office Building, Helsinki (2nd prize, 1964-65, unbuilt), named Maiandros. Aalto described the unique plan for this office building – with connected towers placed on a podium in a park, and a hybrid cellular/open-plan organization – as a plan of ‘interconnected groups’. The architectural critic Malcolm Quantrill discussed what remains one of Aalto’s least-known designs within the scope of what he called Aalto’s “modular works”. How and with what objectives did Aalto use the module in Maiandros? Is the project relevant to architectural theory and practice today? Based on a close study of the archival sources in the Alvar Aalto Museum, the current article tests Quantrill’s hypotheses, adapting them in terms of modular composition, modular construction and a modular environment. Thus, Maiandros is considered within the contexts of: 1) Aalto’s office building designs; 2) the changes going on at that time in Finnish architecture (through a comparison with the winning proposal); 3) the development of the modern office building (using as a reference, Reyner Banham’s 1969 book The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment).