Finnish Wood Culture: innovation within a material palette Chris Allen
t he northern regions of the world are characterized by scarcity. For the northern builder, the material palette is extremely proscribed. There are two radical responses to this situation: to develop building forms which are utterly unique, though often severely limited, or to impose an imported concept, rendering specific qualities of locale irrele - vant. Within the creative tension between these two poles lies a middle course, in which an inventive, modern building culture responds authen- tically to its locale. If there is one northern culture which exemplifies such an approach, it is the Finns. And if there is a single building detail which demonstrates their approach, it is the use of forest thinnings. While the country of Finland straddles the treeline, the cultural hearth of the Finnish speaking majority is the boreal forest. In this landscape of lakes and trees, a wood culture developed which was both spiritu- ally and economically dependent on the forest. Buildings were crafted almost entirely from wood, to the point where an entire farmstead could be constructed from this one material, ridgepole to door hinges. Woodlands were intensively managed to maximize output for both local use and export. A vital component of this management was thinning, or removing a percentage of the saplings to provide more space and light for the remaining trees to thrive. The thinning produced a constant supply of small dimension timber, which was put to numerous ingenious
uses, from fences to roof sheathing, gates, farm implements, drying racks, and the ubiquitous conical summer kitchens. In fact, traditional Finnish construction is characterized as much by the small dimensions, repeti- tion and texture of saplings as it is by monolithic log walls. As Finland began to industrialize in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the constraints which had created this sophisticated wood building culture loosened. However, at a time when many European architects were advocating a radical break with the past, Finland, in 1917, was gaining its independence from Russia. Architects such as Alvar Aalto embraced the tenets of functionalism, but would often include rustic ref- erences to Finnish folk culture in their designs. In the Villa Mairea,Aalto used unpeeled saplings as an undulating entrance screen, a vivid tactile contrast to the white rendered cubic volume of the house. Once inside, the screen was reinterpreted as highly polished turned poles which sup- port the main stair. The surrounding forest is visible beyond this finely crafted screen, expanding the potential readings of the material; it is at once a folk-culture reference, a spatial device echoing the syncopated rhythms of a forest, and a tectonic contrast to more monolithic ele- ments of the building. The sapling screen was reinterpreted by Heikki and Kaija Siren in their
from left to right: Petajavasi forest Suerasaari wood door Petajavasi fence Seurasaari summer kitchen
On Site review 11
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Spring 2004
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