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Creativity permitted? Reima Pietilä was an exceptional architect in many ways; he developed theories and was a prolific writer, including some 80 articles and essays published in the Finnish Architectural Review. He commented boldly on the debates and phenomena in the field and stated, “architecture will die if it is not talked about often enough – even if the talk is derogatory at times”. Reima Pietilä was a humane intellectual, who had the ability to see far ahead and afield. He considered himself a modernist, a continuator of 20th century expressionism, and could not understand why so many of his contemporaries considered the possibilities of architecture so limited. “The increasing bloodlessness and facelessness of our architecture concerns me… Now, with hindsight, we can see that the tumultuous 1960s, so much characterised by haste, were also a decade of misjudgement… The truth has to be told – in terms of our architecture, we have regressed during the past twenty years.” Pietilä was a pioneer and his architecture was too individual in narrow-minded Finland. His appreciation, like Aalto’s, came from abroad. Frank Gehry and Steven Holl have now become international superstars with their plastic buildings, many of which bear a resemblance to the architecture of Aalto and the Pietiläs. It must be borne in mind, though, that Gehry’s (b. 1929) road, for example, has been one full of obstacles, and that for a long time he had few sympathisers – appreciation has only come later in life. That is often the fate of dissidents. 8.12.2004 Harri Hautajärvi