The Architecture & Design Museum Helsinki’s summer exhibition Aalto Design – Shapes of Wellbeing explores the work of Aino, Alvar and Elissa Aalto through the idea that wellbeing emerges from a balance between people, nature and the built environment – and that architecture and design can actively support that relationship.
The exhibition opens as the museum continues its journey toward its new home in Helsinki’s South Harbour, scheduled to open in 2030. One of Finland’s most ambitious cultural projects in recent history, the new museum will create a new international platform for architecture and design discourse and practice. Aalto Design marks an early milestone along that path, offering a glimpse of the future institution’s interdisciplinary and forward-looking curatorial direction.
“Our ambition is to build a leading and inspiring museum for architecture and design in the Nordic context, where innovative cross-disciplinary thinking can flourish,” says Pilvi Kalhama, Director of the Architecture & Design Museum Helsinki.
Internationally, the name Aalto has become synonymous with Finnish architecture and design. Alvar Aalto, together with Aino Aalto and Elissa Aalto, reshaped modern architecture and design by placing holistic human wellbeing at the centre of their work. Their point of departure was the human being, with psychological and bodily needs. They understood that wellbeing emerges through a balance between people, nature and the built environment. In an era dominated by efficiency and rationalism, this was a radical proposition.
“It is remarkable how the Aaltos already considered what we might now call planetary wellbeing. Humans are not positioned above nature, but as part of it – in a relationship that is at once fragile and vital. The exhibition considers this thinking through the questions of our own time,” says Pilvi Kalhama, whose concept underpins the exhibition.
The exhibition extends this perspective by reconsidering the Aaltos’ contribution to modernism itself.
“The Aaltos’ greatest gift to modernism was the idea that architecture should be good both for people and for the environment. At a moment when wellbeing can no longer be separated from ecological questions, the exhibition brings that thinking powerfully into the present,”
says Carson Chan, Chief Curator of the museum, who has supervised the exhibition’s curatorial work.
The exhibition traces how the Aaltos’ conception of design and wellbeing evolved from Paimio Sanatorium (1929–33) through Villa Mairea and into the philosophical core of their later work. Visitors encounter how these ideas took concrete form in architecture and design — from the deepening relationship to landscape that runs from Paimio through the Kauttua Terrace House (1937–38) to Villa Mairea, where the connection to nature reaches a peak, to the Aaltos’ long-term material experimentation, particularly with the warmth of wood and the sensorial qualities of red brick.
“For the Aaltos, materials, detail, light and the surrounding environment were not separate components but essential foundations of wellbeing. The Aaltos sought to create what they themselves described as “paradises on earth”, note curators Jutta Tynkkynen and Petteri Kummala.
Drawing on the museum’s collections as well as loans from the Alvar Aalto Foundation and the Paimio Sanatorium Foundation, the exhibition brings together drawings, models, furniture, glass, material experiments and artworks in dialogue.
An immersive installation evokes Villa Mairea as a total work of art. London-based artist Ilona Sagar’s three-channel film installation Other Actors (2025) receives its Finnish premiere as part of the exhibition. It explores relations between the body, architecture, health and maintenance through Paimio Sanatorium.
Exhibition architecture is designed by Linda Bergroth. It culminates in the Aalto Lounge, where visitors engage physically and spatially with authentic Aalto design.
Aalto Design – Shapes of Wellbeing is based on a concept by Pilvi Kalhama and curated by Petteri Kummala and Jutta Tynkkynen, with Carson Chan as curatorial advisor. The exhibition is realized in collaboration with the Alvar Aalto Foundation, the Paimio Sanatorium Foundation and Artek. Ilona Sagar’s work is produced in collaboration with the Saastamoinen Foundation.
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NOTES FOR EDITORS
Aino, Alvar and Elissa Aalto
Aino Marsio-Aalto (1894–1949) was an internationally acclaimed architect, designer and interior architect, and one of the founding members of Artek. Working alongside Alvar Aalto as an equal design partner, she played a central role in shaping the firm’s distinctive aesthetic as its first artistic director. As a designer, Aino Aalto is particularly celebrated for her glassware.
Alvar Aalto (1898–1976) was a Finnish architect, designer and academic whose work achieved iconic status both nationally and internationally. He is widely recognized as a pioneering figure of human-centred modernism. Aalto’s architecture has been proposed for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List, with a decision expected in summer 2026.
Elissa Aalto (1922–1994) was a Finnish architect, Alvar Aalto’s long-time collaborator and later spouse, who played a significant role in the practice during the postwar period. From the 1950s onward she contributed to many of the office’s major projects. Following Alvar Aalto’s death, she led the office, oversaw the completion of unfinished works and contributed to the restoration of numerous Aalto buildings.
Ilona Sagar: Other Actors (2025)
London-based artist Ilona Sagar’s three-channel film installation Other Actors receives its Finnish premiere as part of Aalto Design – Shapes of Wellbeing. The cinematic work examines relationships between the body and the built environment, and between health and architecture, through the lens of Paimio Sanatorium.
Featuring prominent theorists Beatriz Colomina, Heini Hakosalo, and Peter Stadius, Other Actors asks us to consider what we do with the architectural legacies of modernism that linger in our cultural imaginary, and how we can platform those who would normally be hidden behind its visual façades.
At the time of filming, the sanatorium is at a significant moment in its transition from hospital to a new purpose. As restoration progresses, the film examines its status as a building in flux. Sagar worked in close collaboration with those who worked at the sanatorium, including the former medical and maintenance staff, workers at the furniture manufacturer Artek, and surviving architects of the Aaltos’ design team. Other Actors is informed by collaboration with the Aalto University School of Engineering, the Kalasatama Undocumented Migrants Clinic, as well as the Tuberculosis Research Group at Leicester University and Imperial College London, highlighting an urgent contemporary perspective on a disease often thought to be a relic of the past. Notions of care and maintenance are central to the film. As time moves and agendas change, so does what is being maintained, what survives and what is valued.
The film runs approximately 60 minutes and begins on the hour throughout the exhibition.
Book: Aalto Design: Shapes of Wellbeing
Published alongside the exhibition, the book Aalto Design: Shapes of Wellbeing expands on the exhibition’s central themes. Published in English, the book explores Alvar Aalto’s writings and his lifelong interest in human wellbeing. It also invites dialogue across disciplines and encourages readers to reflect on the role of wellbeing in contemporary design.
In the key essay Alvar Aalto’s Quest for Emotional Intelligence: Towards Epicurean Architecture, Yale University professor of architecture Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen traces the development of Alvar Aalto’s worldview. She demonstrates how it was shaped by Aalto’s educational background as well as by the many literary and intellectual influences he absorbed throughout his life. Through Aalto’s writings, Pelkonen argues that it is impossible to fully appreciate Aalto as an architect without understanding his lifelong commitment to the development of human emotional intelligence.
Title: Aalto Design: Shapes of Wellbeing
ISBN: 978-952-5195-66-8
Authors: Pilvi Kalhama, Petteri Kummala, Jemina Vainikka Lindholm, Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Jutta Tynkkynen
Editors: Petteri Kummala and Carson Chan
Illustrations: Extensive colour illustrations
Further Information and Press Images:
Ilona Hilden
Communications Specialist
Architecture & Design Museum
+358 44 358 2175
ilona.hilden@admuseo.fi
