Excavation of the floor in Lohja church 1966.
Southeast corner of the Tennispalatsi
building in 1938. The doors and window openings comply with the contours of
the land.
Southeast corner of the Tennispalatsi
building in 1999. The façade has been ‘normalized’ on aesthetic grounds without historical justification.
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The return of the stylistic restauration
In Finnish restorations of the 1960s, old was old
and new was new and the two were clearly distinguished. The Venice declaration
and subsequent national and international declarations and conferences
reflected the concepts of restoration that has arisen in recent decades.
A school of Finnish architects specializing in restoration gradually
adopted the principles of conservatory restoration, requiring that everything
that was new clearly bore their own stamp. There are some churches which
stand as warning examples of a common problem in recent church restorations:
the details, materials and lighting are poorly suited to their ancient
character. Apparently small changes have totally transformed the atmosphere
of the interior. This is not due to a lack of information, because church
restorations in Finland are monitored most systematically. The designer
may act under the guidance of his or her own preferences and the wishes
of the parish, with the result that the characteristic features of the
church may take second place. The only comfort to be taken in these
cases is that the errors can usually be corrected later and intrusive
excrescences can be removed.
The works of Alvar Aalto always strike a chord and their design idiom
(style) is renowned; people imagine they know how to apply it. Sometimes,
however, there are cases of ‘excessive knowledge’ of Aalto.
For example, if the use of the building is changed so that the new usage
is aesthetically more demanding than the old, details may be copied
from more prestigious Aalto buildings and placed in the more modest
one. In a sense, this tends to turn Alvar Aalto’s everyday architectural
work into something akin to the pearls of his oeuvre. Alvar Aalto’s
architecture is thus approached in the same way as earlier styles in
the early 1900s.
Stylistic restoration, back-to-the roots restoration or conservatory
restoration have never been applied in their pure forms. The reality
has been a mixture of all three. Even in chronological terms, they have
often overlapped. Something that restorations of all periods have in
common, however, it a low estimation of the previous stage.
Tommi Lindh
Excerpt from the article
on the pages 22-23, ark 2/2000
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