CHIEF PHYSICIAN’S HOUSE The chief physician’s house, completed in 1933, was originally a rather large single-family house. The flat roofed house matched the contemporary white-washed architecture of the sanatorium’s main building. The house was located on a slope facing south-west. The eaves of the building were altered by Aalto’s office as early as in the 1930s.188 The interior of the house was divided by the functions suitable for the way of life of the chief physician. The ground floor comprised a series of hierarchically prominent spaces for entertaining guests and, on the other hand, servants’ spaces hidden from view. The series of prominent spaces consists of the foyer, library, living room and dining hall. The service spaces had their own entrance and even the stairs leading from the foyer to the first floor could be closed off by a curtain. The first floor comprised bedrooms for the family and a bathroom as well as a rather large terrace above the living room.189 Both the exterior and the interior were designed following the functionalist ideas of the time, and, for instance, on the main level the major spaces were connected to each other via large opening. However, the vertical continuity of spaces was not particularly taken into account in the realized house.190 The mortuary under construction (AAM 50-003-251).
ASSISTANT PHYSICIANS’ ROW HOUSE The hierarchy of the sanatorium was particularly evident in the housing facilities. Second in the hierarchy of staff, after the chief physician, were the assistant physicians. They were provided with a row house, also completed in 1933, comprised of three family dwellings. The row house had been a contemporary idea in the late 1910s and Aalto had designed one as a student exercise in 1919, but the row house at Paimio was the first of its type by Aalto to be built. In fact, the design was the same as Aalto had used in his competition entry for the Kälviä sanatorium in spring 1929.191 Aalto developed the design after the competition and, according to Heinonen, it become a much more interesting combination of terraces and lower and higher building volumes, creating a variety of sheltered exterior and interior places, providing simultaneously relatively good privacy.192 188 189 190 191 192
Böök 2011. Böök 2011. Heinonen 1986, 225. Nikula 2014, 81–83. Heinonen 1986, 225–226.
III PART II
CONSERVATION POLICY DESCRIPTION
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ALVAR AALTO FOUNDATION