Client: Alvar Aalto Museum and Museum of Central Finland
Program: Museum Extension
Year / Size: 2015 / 3,000 SF
The skies over central Finland are a year-round kaleidoscope of color gradients, from the daylong bright blue of the summer days to the grey-blue sky of the Northern Lights visible, at times, in the area. These gradient colors occur as a result of unique atmospheric conditions in the extremes between the winter and summer months: blue to orange during sunrise and grey-blue to green to magenta during the Northern Lights. The Skylit proposal for an extension between the Alvar Aalto Museum and the Museum of Central Finland is calibrated to permit these changing light gradients into the museum, transforming its interior atmospheres throughout the year.
The Skylit extension is suspended above the landscape, allowing visitors to move easily from the main road into the adjoining park, Ruusupuisto. A naturally landscaped path threads between the trees on the site, following the contours of both ground and vegetation. The building is literally “in the trees,” celebrating the wooded landscapes of central Finland, and transforming the experience for museum visitors within.
External Links:
About Alvar Aalto (Alvar Aalto Museum)
Alvar Aalto Database (Alvar Aalto Musuem)
The Northern Lights: Aurora Hunting in Finnish Lapland (The Telegraph)
MODU is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites
On the east side, facing the main road, a series of ceramic and glass tubes provide screened views. On the west side, towards the park, the semicircular wall made of glass panels and tubes provides clear and reflected views from the height of the tree canopies. The glass tubes create reflected images and light while reducing winter heat loss, since the air chamber in the tube is a form of thermal insulation.
Skylit learns from the numerous skylights that Aalto developed over his career—but rather than copy any one in particular, the entire extension is conceived of as a single large skylight. A single cut in the roof faces east, matching the morning angle of light in the Alvar Aalto museum, but with a triangular—instead of rectangular—surface of glass. This skylight allows light to cast upon the slightly curved reflective ceiling. The ceiling surface receives two color gradients of light—eastern light from the skylight, southern and western light from the curved glass wall. These shifting color gradients of light create subtle changes in the interior atmosphere of the museum extension, giving expression to the name “Skylit.”
Project Team: Phu Hoang, Rachely Rotem, Kamilla Csegzi, Anahid Simitian