Light at Home: Villa Mairea
Photo by Lindman Photography
Architect: Alvar Aalto
Location: Noormarkku, Finland
Year: 1941
Villa Mairea is a country house designed by Alvar Aalto for his friends Harry and Maire Gullichsen. Aalto was given freedom to experiment with his architectural style and theory. The design was influenced by international modern architecture and art, Finnish cultural heritage, and Japanese tradition.
Surrounded by natural woodlands, Aalto designed the house with the intention of blending the interior and exterior environments. This is mainly achieved by the use of specific types of architectural elements and materials and an aesthetic style that merges the natural and artificial:
Large windows connect the living areas to the back garden bringing daylight and outdoor views to the interior.
Curved lines and organic shapes break the white, geometric architectural volumes and allow for soft gradients of light to seep into the interior.
Columns and posts, located throughout the interior and exterior structure of the house, resemble the sea of birch trees that surrounds the property. Their verticality and irregularity are intentional to avoid the conventional rigidity and inorganic rhythms of architecture. The columns also serve to filter daylight and maintain a sense of transparency throughout the space by minimizing bearing walls and other visual disruptions.
View of the backyard from the living room - Photo by Gustaf Welin, Aalto Museum
Music room - Photo by Aalto Museum
View of the living room from the entrance - Photo by Lindman Photography
Aalto’s palette of materials combines wood, painted and exposed bricks, stone, plaster, ceramic tiles, glass, and rattan. Using predominantly natural light tones, the interiors consistently present a warm and welcoming atmosphere.
The main house consists of two floors.
The ground floor has the character of a large, fluid, open space stimulating socialization and promoting continuity between interior and exterior that is both physical and visual. It contains all the main common social spaces: entrance, living room, library, studio, dining room and kitchen.
The main entry is located on the Southern facade and announced by a deep, sinuous wooden canopy filtering daylight and creating a gradient light zone.
The living room represents the core of the house and from there it’s possible to access the second floor, the exterior and all other common areas. Natural light penetrates from the large windows and is filtered through several methods including the exterior blinds, window louvers, and climbing plants.
Music room - Photo by Aalto Museum
Music room - Photo by Lindman Photography
View of the living room from the backyard - Photo by Lindman Photography
The main stairs are surrounded by slender columns keeping transparency and allowing light to pass through visually uniting the entrance hall with the internal courtyard.
Living room - Photo by Lindman Photography
Main stairs - Photo by Artek
The fireplace, a prominent feature of the living area, is made up of a natural stone slab base with the upper brick volume covered in a smooth layer of plaster. The rear of the fireplace structure looks as though it has been carved through natural erosion. Daylight is softly drawn into the space through the sculptural subtractions in the volume.
Living room - Photo by Maija Holma, Aalto Museum
Fireplace detail -Photo by Heikki Havas, Aalto Museum
In the library, the bookcases act as room partitions and art gallery walls but do not extend all the way to the ceiling. In order to provide sound isolation while preserving the sense of a singular, unified space, undulating wood panels alternating with glass panes were added at the tops of the shelving units. Ceiling mounted adjustable spot light fixtures accent the upper glass screens and create dramatic projections of light and shadow onto the living room ceiling, reinforcing the connection between the library and the rest of the living open space. The light effect also evokes the sensation of being outdoors with rays of sunlight shining through winter forest tree trunks. Adjustable semi-spherical pendant lamps accent the front of the bookshelves and art walls while diffusing some ambient lighting through the perforated metal shade.
Library - Photo by Lindman Photography
Library - Photo by Lindman Photography
Living room - Photo by Lindman Photography
View of the library from the living room - Photo by Lindman Photography
The L-shaped footprint favored a South-West orientation for the common spaces in order to optimize the use of daylight for these areas during the afternoon and evening hours. The western facing dining area, for example, benefits from receiving the last sunlight of the day as the sun sets.
Dining room - Photo by Lindman Photography
By contrast, the second floor is defined by a more rigid division of the different areas prioritizing the privacy of each individual space. All rooms branch off of a single meandering corridor. The floor plan revolves around a central playroom for children that receives daylight from a circular skylight. Southern facing bedrooms have bay windows, oriented to capture as much as possible of the limited Scandinavian east and west sunlight.
Playroom - Photo by Rauno Träskelin
The ground floor open area has a cozy and soft lighting atmosphere defined by the use of decorative lamps, many of which were designed by the Aaltos.
The AMA500 pendant light, specifically designed by Aino Aalto for Villa Mairea, is located over the table in the library. The shade, made of a painted steel sheet, directs light downward. The brass perforated ring detail at the bottom edge, a signature element of many Aalto lamps, reduces glare and provides a light that is warm-toned and diffuse.
Library - Photo by Rauno Träskelin, Mairea Foundation
AMA500 Pendant lamp - Photo by Artek
Alvar Aalto developed a series of lights based on the principal of utilizing staggered metal strips to shroud the light source and allow light to emanate directly down and/or up. This all amounts to an effective and aesthetically beautiful light source that produces a soft, diffuse light without glare.
Floor Light A805 “Angel Wing“ - Photo by Artek
Floor Light A805 “Angel Wing“ detail - Photo © Luciforma
Floor Light A810 - Photo by Artek
Ceiling Light A622 - Photo by 1stdibs
Text by Luciforma