Alvar Aalto's Office - Studio Aalto

This guide to Alvar Aalto's Office in Helsinki follows Elsa Mäkiniemi, a young architecture graduate who walked into the firm in 1949 with no idea she would marry her employer three years later, taking the name Elissa. It traces how Alvar built this curved white studio around a hidden, amphitheatre-shaped courtyard in 1955, convinced real architecture couldn't happen inside an ordinary office, and how Elissa took on major commissions of her own, including the Säynätsalo Town Hall. Stand in the slate courtyard and picture the staff gathered there for lectures and slide shows.