Bases per al Projecte I Curs Primavera 2012
Fonts :: Sources Alvar Aalto. Obra completa: Arquitectura, arte y diseño Schildt, Göran; Ed. Gustavo Gili, S.A., Barcelona 1996; 318 pág.
AA type houses, buildt in several location in Finland Alvar Aalto Foundation: http://file.alvaraalto.fi/search.php?id=584
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Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura del Vallès UNIVERSITAT POLITÈCNICA DE CATALUNYA
When Aalto returned to Finland from the United States in October 1940, A. Ahlström Oy commissioned him to develop the production of prefabricated wooden houses, a branch of industry that had been booming since the conclusion of peace, at the company’s house factory in Varkaus. Large series of Aalto’s pre-war standard housing had already been manufactured there for several industrial communities. Aalto’s new ideas on flexible standardization, however, made him react with distaste to the mass production of identical houses. He instead started developing variability based on a precisely defined system. Whereas the MIT laboratory had studied 93 variants of the simple, wooden, single-family house, Aalto set the house factory a programme of 69 variants, with further variants provided by the possibility of building a cellar or attic.He called this new production programme the AA system, the initials standing for both the manufacturing company and the architect responsible for the plans. No clear line can be drawn, however, between the earlier standard houses and the new, variable houses, partly because in practice the factory continued to focus on a handful of variants that were easy to market at the expense of those less in demand. Nor did Ahlström prove willing to fulfil Aalto’s demands for a testing and exhibition area where the whole range of products could be demonstrated or for advertising catalogues that would depict the benefits of extensive choice. The result was that flexibility was never seriously introduced, and the AA system can only be studied on the basis of the innumerable series of sketches for various house types that Aalto untiringly drew up in the 1940s.The small houses from 1937-39 are referred to by letter symbols, in some cases with numerical subscripts. The wall cladding is vertical weatherboarding, and the roof ridge is off the plan’s central axis. The system was developed to include row houses, large houses for company officials, as well as summer cottages, many of which were in the ‘Karelian’ style favoured by Aalto at the time, having several ‘cells’ with separate functions as well as turf roofs and untreated pine log columns. The entire summer cottage series was shelved for good when war broke out again. Built examples of AA system single-family homes can be found in the Savonmäki and Könönpelto districts of Varkaus, in Kauttua on Varkaudenmäki hill, in Sunila’s Puistola area of single-family homes, and in Noormarkku. Aalto also gave his housekeeper Anni Argillander standard house drawings for a home in Helsinki, but this was never built. The following AA system houses can be found just in Varkaus:1) AA row houses comprising two house types, the TRT (TasamaaRiviTalo = LevelRowHouse) and RRT series (RinneRiviTalo = SlopeRowHouse). A series of sub-types exist, the main variation being in dwelling size. The RRT houses were basically timber versions of the concrete ROT house. In 1941 Aalto drew up plans for a six-family and four-family version, five of each of which were to be built as an experiment on the Käärmeenniemi promontory, but only the first type was built in this area, also known as Pikku Paratiisi (Little Paradise).2) In 1941 Aalto developed a series of houses called VOK (VirkamiesOmaKoti = OfficialOwnHome) in three sizes (129, 139, and 150 m2). The spacious houses are on an almost square plan, and have a low hip roof with overhanging eaves and triangular windows at the short ends. The low roof and vertical weatherboarding give the houses a horizontal look. Some VOK houses were built at Noormarkunkuja in Varkaus, one in the hospital area (the ‘Doctor’s House’) and one (later converted into a shop) at the edge of the Könönpelto area of single-family homes.
Alvar Aalto :: Sistema AA