Category: Uncategorized

I visited Aalto’s Saynatsalo Town Hall on the summer solstice. It was cool, overcast, and raining. The night before, the sky never got dark. At midnight it was as bright as 8:30 PM in Maine. I drove to the village of Saynatsalo after breakfast, a short distance south of Jyvaskyla. The road goes through the… Read more »

I arrived in Seinajoki on Sunday at 10:45, a few minutes before the service in the Aalto church was about to begin. It was raining steadily, and I noticed there were hundreds of people about, all wearing clear plastic rain parkas over traditional Finnish outfits. I didn’t pay much attention to it, and started approaching… Read more »

Today I visited Alvar Aalto’s Studio/Museum in Monteniemi. I have been longing to see this small building for many years, but what I experienced was very different than I expected. I thought it would be an active space, full of the energy of the studio where sometimes 50 architects worked elbow to elbow late into… Read more »

  I had expected my visit to Villa Mairea to be all about the sense of touch. With so many rich materials used in so many unusual ways, it would be hard to imagine this house as anything but a rich tactile experience. It certainly is that, but today I experienced the house differently. I… Read more »

For many years I have been interested in the relationship between our most basic building materials of stone, wood, glass, and metal, and the five elements of acupuncture: water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. I have had many conversations with my sister Linda about these relationships. Linda is a very talented five-element acupuncturist and teacher… Read more »