Sam Barham

Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture

1















Hapticity and Alvar Aaltos Architecture

















Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
2












The value of our embodied aesthetic experience of architecture has been noted by various writers (Abram 1996, Le Cuyer 2001, St John Wilson 1989, Von-
Miess 1997 etc). Juhani Pallasmaa (1996) has proposed that Alvar Aaltos buildings afford us a beneficial and engaging experience because of the way that
they exploit this realm focussing as they do upon the sensual qualities of materials and our haptic experience of space and form.

Significantly, Pallasmaa has also argued that this quality is a means to address the superficiality of meaning in much contemporary architecture.

With reference to the literature relating to hapticity and embodiment in architecture, you are asked to discuss Alvar Aaltos work as an exemplar of
Pallasmaas argument. In particular, you should find and describe instances in Aaltos work which afford the above experiences, and then critically
consider the consequences of these experiences.

Front Cover Image: Syntsalo Town Hall http://cavin2009.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/36-d_saynatsalo-town-hall.JPG








Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
3

Contents

Introduction 4
The Science and Philosophy of Experience 5
Alvar Aalto's Architecture:
Experimental Summer House 7
Syntsalo Town Hall 9
Villa Mairea 11
The Church of the Three Crosses, The Viipuri Library & Early Theatre Designs 13
Conclusion 14

References 15













Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
4

Introduction

"... I perceive the wind surging through the branches of an aspen tree, I am unable, at
first, to distinguish the sight of those trembling leaves from their delicate whispering. My
muscles, too feel, the torsion as those branches bend, ever so slightly, in the surge, and
this imbues the encounter with a certain tactile tension. This encounter is influenced, as
well, by the fresh smell of the autumn wind, and even by the taste of an apple that still
lingers on my tongue."
1

(fig 1)

Multi-Sensory Experience, David Abrams, The Spell of the Sensuous


Humans, are multi-sensory, perceptive, embodied beings. We are tuned to touch, taste,
smell, see and hear the world around us. Our life-experience stems not just from
cognitive thought and visual memory, but a multi-faceted pool of sensory information. It
is strange then that, synaesthetic perception, the symbiotic merging of the senses, is
considered a rare pathological, even "quasi-mystical"
2
experience according to most
contemporary neuroscience when much of our cerebral existence is formed through a
fusion of one or more senses. The origin of this fault is explained by Abram, "The
intertwining of sensory modalities seems unusual to us only to the extent that we have
become estranged from our direct experience (and hence from our primordial contact with the entities and elements that surround us)."
3

It is true that the social and cultural shift from oral speech to the written word has pertained a cultural shift in our perceived ranking of the senses. Vision,
has reigned over all other senses since the Renaissance. "...the five senses were understood to form a hierarchical system from the highest sense, from
vision down to touch."
4
Indeed it can be argued that in today's linear, technologically-minded, consumerist society, "the only sense that is fast enough to
keep pace... is sight."
5
As highlighted by many writers in the late 20th century, and what Pallasmaa coins the "Narcissistic eye"
6
, the dominance of vision has
led to two-dimensionality in architectural theory. It has caused us to "live increasingly in a perpetual present, flattened by speed and simultaneity"
7
. It is
only recently that philosophical and architectural discourse has begun to realise the importance of a unified, embodied sensorial experience. Indeed, as
explained by Eric-von Meiss, "Architecture is image only in drawing or photograph. As soon as it is built is becomes the scene and sometimes the scenario of
comings and goings, of gestures, even of succession of sensations."
8


Disillusioned by the narrow, single-sense orientation of modernism, Alva Aalto is highlighted by Pallasmaa as one of the few architects of his generation that
has created beneficial architecture that engages on more than one sensorial level. This essay seeks to explore how he has achieved these experiences in
contrast to other modernist architects with reference to literature concerning embodiment, tactility, memory, experience and form.
fig. 1 Aspen Tree in Autumn
http://www.wallpaperweb.org/wallpaper/Nature/1600x1200/Large_Maple_Tree
_in_Autumn_Bass_Lake_North_Carolina.jpg
Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
5

The Science and Philosophy of Experience

Science attempts reason in absolute chaos. The universe, according to Galileo, "is written [and
understood] in the language of mathematics", without which one metaphorically wanders
about "in a dark labyrinth."
9

(fig 2)
Yet our unrelenting reliance on science to explain and
understand even the smallest act of human existence clouds the function of the act itself. This
concern is voiced by Pallasmaa. "Even in the simple act of riding a bicycle, the theoretical
knowledge of how the vehicle is kept upright is suppressed as the act is performed
unconsciously through body memory..." as soon as one attempts to conceive of what
theoretical forces are at work, "you are in immediate danger of tumbling over."
10
The current
sociological climate, in which pragmatism, mathematics and reason reign over anything
inherently subjective is strange when the two are intrinsically bound. According to Abram
science itself is fundamentally existential. "Even the most detached scientist must begin and
end her study in this indeterminate field of experience, where shifts of climate or mood may
alter his experiment or her interpretation of "the data"."
11
Fundamentally, science is linked to
the very same 'soil' that has shaped our own existential bodily experiences. Indeed, take the
notion that our very own, living, breathing emotionally-charged selves conceived of the these
theoretical quanta in the first place and it is difficult to see why both are so paradoxically
opposed. Led by French theorists, Maurice-Merleau Ponty and Edward Husserl, this particular
philosophical tension birthed a new way of thinking that was primordially experiential in its
approach: phenomenology.

Rather than seeking to explain the world, the phenomenologist, prefers to "describe as closely
as possible the way the world makes itself evident to awareness" via "...our direct, sensorial
experience."
12
Phenomenology, in the words of Abram, establishes itself among the other
sciences "as the only basis possible for a knowledge that necessarily emerges from our lived
experience of things around us."
13
However, with both phenomenology and traditional
science as analytical tools, there are still things unexplainable to human study. Take the poet
as an example, explains Bachelard, using psycho analytical methods, it is possible to
understand the course/reason and resultants of his or her life actions, "...but the poetic act
itself, the sudden image, the flare-up of being in the imagination, are inaccessible to such
information."
14
This analogy highlights the main problem with experiential study: the notion
fig. 2 Complex Diversity of the Cosmos - Understandable Only
to Mathematics
http://www.ee.usyd.edu.au/~kpang/p_download/cosmos1.jpg
Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
6

of subjectivity. Similar experiences in similar individuals can trigger highly polarised emotional responses. As Jameson points out, "the spatial unconscious
can associate anything with anything else - a dead body meaning jubilatory euphoria, a loved one's photography triggering violent xenophobia."
15
Even the
simple act of reading is bound to subjective experience and memory. As an author, "you would like to interest the reader in yourself", to explain and
describe your own 'room', but as soon as the reader hits the very first word, he or she "leaves off reading and starts to think of some place in his own past.
The values of intimacy are so absorbing that the reader has ceased to read your room: he sees his own again."
16
The problem with phenomenology, explains
Abram, is that the method is "inherently solipsistic - an approach that seals the philosopher inside his own solitary experience, rendering him ultimately
unable to recognize anyone or anything outside of his own mind."
17
To counter-act charges of solipsism, Husserl formed the notion of inter-subjectivity. An
entirely new concept that recognised both individualistic experience and the embodied perception of multiple persona in one universal void. As better
explained by Abram:

"I directly see of a particular oak tree or building, I know or intuit that there are also those facets of the oak or building that are visible to the other perceivers
that I see. I sense that the tree is much more than what I directly see of it, since it is also what the others whom I see perceive of it; I sense that as a
perceivable presence it already existed before I came to look at it, and indeed that it will not dissipate when I turn away from it, since it remains an
experience for others..."
18


The idea that our own subjective experience is inter-twined with other "embodied subjects"
19
allows us to better link subjectivity and the collective.
Transposing this methodology to architecture, one of the main failures of 20th century universalism is that it does not account for an individualistic
understanding of space. It is true that as an architect, one is never able to control the mind and feelings of a spatial inhabitant, because, as summarised by
Jameson, "...no work of art or culture can set out to be political once and for all, [for] no matter how ostentatiously it labels itself as such, ...there can never
be any guarantee it will be used [in] the way it demands."
20
Yet I believe, if considerate, one is able to formulate architecture that can positively trigger both
the individual and the collective - a truly inter-subjective experience. Alvar Aalto (with near universal-acclaim) is one of the few architects that can be
described in this sense. Juhani Pallasmaa has particularly taken to this view, arguing that, "Frank Lloyd Wright's and Alvar Aalto's architectures are based on
a full recognition of the embodied human condition and of the multitude of instinctual reactions hidden in the human unconscious."
21


What follows is a description of Aalto's most important work, highlighting his aptitude in creating architecture that succeeds on both a regional and
sensorial plane.





Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
7

Alvar Aalto's Architecture

Experimental Summer House

"Beyond six rivers and three mountain ranges rises Zora, a city that no one, having seen it, can forget. But not because, like other memorable cities, it leaves
an unusual image in your recollections. Zora has the quality of remaining in your memory point by point, in its succession of streets, of houses along the
streets, and of doors and windows in the houses, though nothing in them possesses a special beauty or rarity. Zora's secret lies in the way your gaze runs
over patterns following one another as in a musical score where not a note can be altered or displaced."
22


The Sensory Journey, Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

When considering Aalto's experimental summer cottage
(fig 3)
, the experiential journey is as, if not more
important than the architecture itself. Sanaksenaho reminds us that, "we are dealing with a summer
cottage here, something very dear to a Finn, something traditional. For a Finn, his summer cottage is
where he is able to realise his innermost desire to be as one with nature"
23
This powerful link to nature is
something shared in the oral traditions of the Apache, and Australian Aborigine: "Upon pronouncing, or
hearing, such a name, Apache persons straightaway feel themselves in the presences of that place; hence,
when reciting a series of place-names, the Apache experience themselves "travelling in their minds."
24


Although much removed from these origins of spatial language, elements do remain in our current
contemporary psyche. In a recent study by Linde and Labov, residents were asked to describe their New
York apartments. They recognized "two distinct types, which they called the "map" and the "tour."" The
overwhelming result favoured the "tour", whereas "...only three percent of the descriptions [were] of the
"map" type."
25
This proves that both traditional ancestor and contemporary citizen favour a spatial
journey over an ocular, static, reminiscence of place. A concept that Aalto exploits well in this particular
design. "From the lake, the building is approached by boat. First comes the introduction - the water, the
rolling forest and the waves lapping on the round pebbles. From the shore you ascend towards the house,
slipping between the trees and the stones. It feels like a ceremony."
26
It is this ceremonial journey that
engages the visitor in the landscape. It roots both the summerhouse to its surroundings, and gives it
meaning. By journeying, you form a retreat, an appreciation of place, a literal 'get-away'.

fig. 3 Alvar Aalto's "Experimental House" at
Muuratsalo, Finland, 1953
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/Pictures/468xAny/m/u/s/Experi
mental_House_ready.jpg
Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
8

There is a paradoxical difference between the careful inter-twining of structure to place in Aalto's summerhouse, and the "authoritarian strain"
27
of similar
modernists of his generation. Le Corbusier is reported to have said, "Architecture is the masterly correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in
light... it is a plastic thing. I mean by "plastic" what is seen and measured by the
eyes..."
28
If this notion of architecture were to be applied to Aalto's summer-house, a
visitor would most definitely miss much of the point; and not just in the architecture,
but in the full spatial and sensorial landscape in which it is situated.

Le Corbusier's own utopian schemes went further, distancing themselves from the
surrounding fabric of the "fallen city"
(fig 4)
in the hope that one day, "by the very
power of [their] new spatial language"
29
they would branch out and transform their
surroundings. This arrogant disregard for context and place, and a "negligence of the
body and senses"
30
has contributed to this particular failure of modernism. As
summarised by Pallasmaa, "the art of the eye has certainly produced imposing and
thought-provoking structures, but it has not facilitated human rootedness in the
world."
31


















fig. 4 Le Corbusier's Pilotis - The Villa Savoye, Poissy, Paris, 1929
http://arktetura.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/villa-savoye-2.jpg
Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
9

Syntsalo Town Hall

On approaching Aalto's Syntsalo's Town Hall, one instantly notices the complementary of colour between the "greenness of nature" and the striking,
warm, "grey, brown and red shades of brick"
32
that form much of the structure's exterior. This strong brickwork, that modulates through both exterior and
interior spaces, is testament to Aalto's skill with materials. As elegantly summarised by von Meiss, "Surface modulation is the architect's touchstone. He
reveals himself either as an artist or simple as an engineer."
33
On entering the interior, Sanaksenaho notices that, "the relief-like character and the touch of
the human hand inherent in [the] masonry are well presented."
34
Pallasmaa denotes a similar haptic experience, "the red brick walls... project similarly a
powerful tactile invitation that speaks of the act of bricklaying and the touch of the hand."
35
It is not just the brick-walls that invite the senses, "wood is
wherever we touch a surface... and it is a pleasant material to touch."
36
This has been taken into due consideration by Aalto, explains von Meiss, as "It is well
known that it is not enough just to look at beautiful objects on display: we want to touch them, examine the weight and the textural quality of the surface
and its form."
37
Aalto is said to have been particularly passionate about bricklaying and materiality in general; it is once noted that he searched for the
"lousiest bricks in the world"
38
in order to dash any visual trace of a standardised, mass-produced facade. This is in direct contrast with the "frame and thin-
skin vocabulary of twentieth-century architecture;" although sporting of many technological advances, "it has... tended to define architecture in reductive
terms as an ever-thinner assemblage of layers."
39
Indeed, the "very same bricks in a building nearby, designed by a less gifted architect, appear as lifeless
surfaces made of industrially mass-produced construction elements."
40


As one enters the council chamber, both Sanaksenaho and Pallasmaa relate to the
almost ethereal light-play that reigns over the interior walls "...the atmosphere reminds
me of a monastery"
41
and "the dark womb of the council chamber of Alvar Aalto's
Syntsalo Town Hall recreates a mystical and mythological sense of community."
42

Light is indeed a powerful, almost supernatural force, as recollected by Abram "...[the]
column of light was indeed power, influencing the air currents by its warmth and indeed
influencing the whole mood of the room..."
43
But however important light can seem to
be, shadow can be equally as profound, "darkness creates a sense of solidarity and
strengthens the power of the spoken word."
44
Indeed, there pertains a general failure of
western architects to eradicate even the "minutest shadow."
45
For, according to
Tanazaki, items that are bathed in shadow are by far the most attractive:

"...in the darkness of the innermost rooms of these huge buildings, to which sunlight
never penetrates, how the gold leaf of a sliding door or screen will pick up a distant
glimmer from the garden, then suddenly send forth an ethereal glow, a faint golden light
cast into the enveloping darkness, like the glow upon the horizon at sunset. In no other
setting is gold quite so exquisitely beautiful."
46

(fig 5)

fig. 5 Coupling of Light and Shadow - Japanese Temple, Hawaii
http://rbdesigns.deviantart.com/art/Japanese-Temple-38572676
Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
10

Materialism, tectonics and light create a considerable impression, Tanazaki ponders this over a visit to the Japanese dentist, "One reason we hate to go to
the dentist is the scream of his drill; but the excessive glitter of glass and metal is equally intimidating."
47
It is true, agrees Pallasmaa, that "homogenous
bright light paralyses the imagination..." after all, "the human eye is most perfectly tuned for twilight rather than bright daylight."
48
So in contrast to the
"progressive westerner [who is] determined always to better his lot"
49
Aalto succeeds in creating interior and exterior space that exploit and play with this
haptic and sensorial realm.


























Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
11

Villa Mairea

The approach to the Villa Mairea is transient. The surrounding pine forest envelops the construction, and yet no grand entrance-way forms to break the
sensation. It is perhaps the "wooden entrance canopy" or maybe the "pavement made of natural stone"
50
that pertains a refined, almost sensitive,
connection between landscape and structure.
(fig 6)
The villa appears to reach out into the forest, and the forest permeates back into the transparent
boundaries and internal division of space. A feat, termed by Pallasmaa, as "forest geometry."
51
Due to the cold, northern climate, spatial divisions in
contemporary architecture tended to be "cut off from each other in a disproportionately strict way." Aalto commented on the appropriate behaviour
between interior and exterior spaces. "...there has to be a connection of "refined ceremony" from street to the garden and from the garden to the interior
spaces"
52
and this notion is certainly apparent in his Villa Mairea.






fig. 6 Entrance to the Villa Mairea, Noormarkku, Finland
http://cavin2009.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/38-b_villa-mairea.JPG
Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
12

Contemporary architecture is at particular fault when it comes to transitory space. Take the arrogant, "populist insertion"
53
of Portman's Bonaventure into
the cityscape of Los Angeles. It's unusual, tiered entranceways and impractical floor structure, interlinked amongst a myriad of lifts and escalators make it
appear some kind of mini-city. It "ought not to have entrances at all" exclaims Jameson, "since the entryway is always the seam that links the building to the
rest of the city that surrounds it."
54
This is testament to the rejection of the existing city fabric, for, in the words of Jameson, "it does not wish to be a part of
the city but rather its equivalent and replacement or substitute."
55


"Sitting down on the sofa, you can see the forest landscape and the fire at the same
time. There is something familiar, primitive about this."
56
Indeed, agrees Bachelard,
who writes of the delight in imagining "...that we were living in the heart of the
woods, in the well-heated hut of charcoal burners;
(fig 7)
I even hoped to hear wolves
sharpening their claws on the heavy granite slab that formed our doorstep."
57
There
is something inherently primordial that Aalto has captured in the internal lounge
space that is recognised by both Sanaksenaho and Bachelard. A fundamental
existential experience that harks back the basic human notion of shelter. Even the
"peculiar bamboo staircase" gives the visitor an impression "of a sort of hut in the
woods."
58
As reiterated by Alexander, the steeply pitched roof, (and all of its
experiential connotations) is probably the most "natural and simple thing to build"
and yet it evokes a "primitive feeling"
59
that is lacking in most contemporary
architecture.

Yet most importantly of all, the Villa Maeria expresses an almost timeless quality. As
famously stated by Aalto himself, "anything superfluous turns ugly with time."
60
By
using imagery and "biomorphisms"
61
that activate our primordial, subconscious
connection to the natural world, Aalto succeeds in rooting his creations to the
organic. It is the failure of contemporary architecture with its "nostalgia for a
vernacular past"
62
that has produced so many meaningless classicist reproductions.
The key, is that his "motifs are not borrowings; they are re-creations and they
merely hint at a possible origin elsewhere."
63
If the modernist movement had
realised this fact, the twentieth century would have seen more meaningful
architecture as a result.



fig. 7 Primordial Connection of Man to Earth - Campsite Fire
http://cavin2009.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/38-b_villa-mairea.JPG
Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
13

The Church of the Three Crosses, The Viipuri Library & Early Theatre Designs

Although less famous in regards to the other selected works of this essay, these three examples are no less effective in revealing his multi-faceted approach
to embodiment in architecture.

Aalto's theatre designs of the late 1920s give an insight into his subtle and delicate approach to the problem of intimate, interior space. "Instead of
depending on monumental expression for effect," explains Pelkonen, Aalto constructed, "multi-sensory spaces... of light and sound [that] eliminated
perceptual distance altogether."
64
Through "various tectonic strategies,"
65
reflective and non-reflective materials and sophisticated, even, artificial light,
Aalto was able to instigate perfect, ambient lighting. By taking into account the architectural, technological and psychological effects of space, Aalto' was
able to conceive (albeit in plan) an intimate, fully embodied experiential space.

The Viipuri library in Vyborg, Russia is perhaps one of Aalto's most simple, and successful acoustic designs. What appears as the "result of pure play,"
66
the
undulating ceiling of the auditorium actually functions as a successful acoustic space,
(figs 8 & 9)
As reiterated by Pallasmaa, architecture is not only a visual act,
"qualities of space, matter and scale are measured equally by eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue, skeleton and muscle."
67
It is Aalto's skill in weaving together these
visual, spatial and acoustic senses that makes the auditorium so successful. He effectively produces, as termed by Pelkonen, a "multifaceted sensory
stimuli"
68
that evokes different emotions in each and every visitor.

A similar result is achieved in Aalto's design for the Church of the Three Crosses, where Aalto
achieved acoustic intimacy via use of a scale model, tracing rays of light that simulated human
sound paths. Not only is the design inherently complex, ("he had to send his chief assistant "to
refresh his knowledge of trigonometry at the University of Helsinki for a couple of months"
69
),
but the design is "extraordinarily plastic and sensuous."
70
The seamless white render, denotes a
beautiful and sensorial interior space; where the walls almost invite the touch of the hand. It is
Aalto's understanding of the multi-faceted nature of experience that makes these three spaces
so successful. In contrast, and as explained by Pelkonen, "the main problem of modern
architecture was its emphasis on form and style,"
71
it pertained a lack of fulfilment in all areas
of sensorial experience, and as architecture "strengthens [ones] existential experience, one's
sense of being in the world"
72
a
lack of fulfilment in all sensorial
areas conduits a lack in the
architecture of modernism.

figs. 8 & 9 Undulating Ceiling of the Viipuri Library, Vyborg,
Russia, 1933-35 and its Accompanied Acoustic Cross-Section
Eeve-Liisa Pelkonen, Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics pg. 154-155
Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
14

Conclusion

At a conference in 1935, Aalto delivered a lecture that pleaded for a "more complex understanding of form - its creation and social impact."
73
His thinking
led him to conclude that, "the modernist emphasis on Saclichkeit and rationality was compromising the complexity of human life by overlooking
unobservable aspects of the human psyche, such as feelings and intuition."
74
In his own words:

"Nature, biology, has rich and luxurious forms. With the same construction, the same tissues, and the same principles of cellular organization, it can create
billions of combinations, each of which represents a definitive, highly developed form. Man's life belongs to the same category. The things that surround him
are hardly fetishes or allegories with mystical eternal value; more than anything else, they are cells and tissues, living beings like himself, building
components that make up human life."
75


This is explanation enough of his understanding of the inter-subjective nature of existential experience that each one of us feels. Via description and
thorough analysis of his works, I feel I have proven Aalto's practical application of this theory to physical, spatial form. In this sense, only upon visiting each
site in succession will I be able to truly summarise my feelings and voice my own opinion of his architecture as a collective. Yet considering the near-
universal acclaim for his architecture on a regional plane (and considering the fulfilment of his tactile, and haptic exploitation of all the senses as a result of
this written study) it is indeed fair to conclude that Aalto's work is a success. In light of this, (highlighted by Pallasmaa, and other phenomenologically-
minded writers), it is apparent that a considerable proportion of the modern movement lacks a fundamental connection to the human spirit because it does
not converse on the many planes needed in order to experience 'good architecture.' As summarised by Kenneth Frampton, "architecture possesses a
marked capacity for being experienced by the entire sensorium... under most circumstances, materials and surfaces can be as much a part of an overall
perception of architecture as the presence of visual form."
76


But perhaps the most apt summary of this point is in a quote from the man himself, "The best way to acquaint oneself with architecture is not to read about
it: it is to look, touch, smell, and listen to it - a building only gains meaning when it becomes part of human life."
77










Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
15


Introduction

1
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, (Vintage Books, 1996), p. 60.

2
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics, (Yale University Press, 2009), p. 154.

3
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, (Vintage Books, 1996), p. 60.

4
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 15.

5
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 21.

6
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 22.

7
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 21.

8
Eric von Meiss, Elements of Architecture: From Form to Place, (Chapman & Hall, 1991), p. 15.

The Science and Philosophy of Experience

9
Galileo Galilei, cited in Edwin Jones, Reading the Book of Nature, (Athens: Ohio University Press,1989), p. 22.

10
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Thinking Hand, (John Wiley & Sons, 2009), p. 144.

11
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, (Vintage Books, 1996), p. 33.

12
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, (Vintage Books, 1996), p. 35.

13
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, (Vintage Books, 1996), p. 36.

14
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space: The Classic Look at how we Experience Intimate Places, (Beacon Press, 1969), intro p. xvii.

15
Fredric Jameson, "Is Space Political?" in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory ed. Neil Leach (Routledge, 1997), p. 258.

16
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space: The Classic Look at how we Experience Intimate Places, (Beacon Press, 1969), p. 14.
Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
16


17
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, (Vintage Books, 1996), p. 37.

18
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, (Vintage Books, 1996), p. 39.

19
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, (Vintage Books, 1996), p. 38.

20
Fredric Jameson, "Is Space Political?" in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory ed. Neil Leach, (Routledge, 1997), p. 258.

21
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 70.

Alvar Aalto's Architecture: Experimental Summer House

22
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, (Vintage Books: London, 1997), p. 13.

23
Matti Sanaksenaho, "Visiting the Houses of Aalto" in Alvar Aalto Houses: Timeless Expression ed. Nobuyuki Yoshida, (A+U Publishing Co., Ltd. 1998), p. 214.

24
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, (Vintage Books, 1996), p. 155.

25
Michel de Certeau, "Spatial Stories" in What is Architecture? ed. Andrew Ballantyne, (Routledge,2002), p. 76.

26
Matti Sanaksenaho, "Visiting the Houses of Aalto" in Alvar Aalto Houses: Timeless Expression ed. Nobuyuki Yoshida, (A+U Publishing Co., Ltd. 1998), p. 214.

27
Diane Ghirardo, "The Architecture of Deceit" in What is Architecture? ed. Andrew Ballantyne, (Routledge,2002), p. 66.

28
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 27.

29
Fredric Jameson, "Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory ed. Neil Leach (Routledge, 1997), p. 243.

30
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 17.

31
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 17.

Syntsalo Town Hall

32
Matti Sanaksenaho, "Visiting the Houses of Aalto" in Alvar Aalto Houses: Timeless Expression ed. Nobuyuki Yoshida, (A+U Publishing Co., Ltd. 1998), p. 215.
Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
17



33
Eric von Meiss, Elements of Architecture: From Form to Place, (Chapman & Hall, 1991), p. 189.

34
Matti Sanaksenaho, "Visiting the Houses of Aalto" in Alvar Aalto Houses: Timeless Expression ed. Nobuyuki Yoshida, (A+U Publishing Co., Ltd. 1998), p. 216.

35
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Thinking Hand, (John Wiley & Sons, 2009), p. 60.

36
Matti Sanaksenaho, "Visiting the Houses of Aalto" in Alvar Aalto Houses: Timeless Expression ed. Nobuyuki Yoshida, (A+U Publishing Co., Ltd. 1998), p. 216.

37
Eric von Meiss, Elements of Architecture: From Form to Place, (Chapman & Hall, 1991), p. 15.

38
Prof. Dr. Akos Moravansky, Thesis, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Bauhaus-Universitt, (Heft, 2000) http://e-pub.uni-
weimar.de/volltexte/2008/1277/pdf/Akos_Moravanszky.pdf accessed April 29, 2010. p. 44.

39
Annette Le Cuyer, Radical Tectonics, (Thames & Hudson Ltd, London, 2001), p. 19.

40
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Thinking Hand, (John Wiley & Sons, 2009), p. 61.

41
Matti Sanaksenaho, "Visiting the Houses of Aalto" in Alvar Aalto Houses: Timeless Expression ed. Nobuyuki Yoshida, (A+U Publishing Co., Ltd. 1998), p. 216.

42
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 47.

43
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, (Vintage Books, 1996), p. 28.

44
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 47.

45
Junichir Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, (Vintage, 2001), p. 48.

46
Junichir Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, (Vintage, 2001), p. 35.

47
Junichir Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, (Vintage, 2001), p. 21.

48
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 46.

49
Junichir Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, (Vintage, 2001), p. 48.
Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
18


Villa Mairea

50
Matti Sanaksenaho, "Visiting the Houses of Aalto" in Alvar Aalto Houses: Timeless Expression ed. Nobuyuki Yoshida, (A+U Publishing Co., Ltd. 1998), p. 218.

51
Juhani Pallasmaa, "Tradition and Modernity: The Feasibility of Regional Architecture in Post-Modern Society," in Architectural Regionalism: Collected Writings on Place,
Identity, Modernity and Tradition, ed. Vincent Canizaro, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), p. 132.

52
Nobuyuki Yoshida, Alvar Aalto Houses: Timeless Expression, (A+U Publishing Co., Ltd. 1998), p. 2.

53
Fredric Jameson, "Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory ed. Neil Leach (Routledge, 1997), p. 242.

54
Fredric Jameson, "Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory ed. Neil Leach (Routledge, 1997), p. 243.

55
Fredric Jameson, "Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory ed. Neil Leach (Routledge, 1997), p. 243.

56
Matti Sanaksenaho, "Visiting the Houses of Aalto" in Alvar Aalto Houses: Timeless Expression ed. Nobuyuki Yoshida, (A+U Publishing Co., Ltd. 1998), p. 218.

57
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space: The Classic Look at how we Experience Intimate Places, (Beacon Press, 1969), p. 31.

58
Matti Sanaksenaho, "Visiting the Houses of Aalto" in Alvar Aalto Houses: Timeless Expression ed. Nobuyuki Yoshida, (A+U Publishing Co., Ltd. 1998), p. 218.

59
Christopher Alexander, in "The Architecture of Deceit" in What is Architecture? ed. Andrew Ballantyne, (Routledge,2002), p. 68.

60
Alvar Aalto, "Temple Baths on Jyvskyl Ridge" in Alvar Aalto in his Own Words ed. Gran Schildt (Keuruu, 1997)

61
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics, (Yale University Press, 2009), p. 144.

62
Annette Le Cuyer, Radical Tectonics, (Thames & Hudson Ltd, London, 2001), p. 21.

63
Juhani Pallasmaa, "Tradition and Modernity: The Feasibility of Regional Architecture in Post-Modern Society," in Architectural Regionalism: Collected Writings on Place,
Identity, Modernity and Tradition, ed. Vincent Canizaro, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), p. 134.

The Church of the Three Crosses, The Viipuri Library & Early Theatre Designs

64
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics, (Yale University Press, 2009), p. 60.
Sam Barham
Hapticity and Alvar Aalto's Architecture
19


65
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics, (Yale University Press, 2009), p. 61.

66
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics, (Yale University Press, 2009), p. 155.

67
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 41.

68
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics, (Yale University Press, 2009), p. 156.

69
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Thinking Hand, (John Wiley & Sons, 2009), p. 99.

70
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Thinking Hand, (John Wiley & Sons, 2009), p. 99.

71
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics, (Yale University Press, 2009), p. 185.

72
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), p. 41.

Conclusion

73
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics, (Yale University Press, 2009), p. 184.

74
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics, (Yale University Press, 2009), p. 185.

75
Leonardo Mosso, "Rationalismen of Manniskan" in Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity, and Geopolitics ed. Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, (Yale University Press, 2009), p. 185

76
Kenneth Frampton, "10 Points on an Architecture of Regionalism: A Provisional Polemic," in Architectural Regionalism: Collected Writings on Place, Identity, Modernity and
Tradition, ed. Vincent Canizaro, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), p. 384.

77
Matti Sanaksenaho, "Visiting the Houses of Aalto" in Alvar Aalto Houses: Timeless Expression ed. Nobuyuki Yoshida, (A+U Publishing Co., Ltd. 1998), p. 213.

Word Count - 4286 Words