In 1952, Aalto was commissioned to design the headquarters of the communist party of Finland in the working-class neighbourhood of Alppila, in the north of Helsinki. The Kulttuuritalo, or House of Culture, was located on Sturenkatu Street, a main artery in a downtrodden neighbourhood with the aim of contributing to its regeneration and strengthening the ties between the east and west sides of the city. For this reason, it was placed on the plot of land such that people could enter it from four different points, primarily from the south and east. Just like in the workers’ clubs in the Soviet Union, it is a multipurpose building which Aalto expressed with two formally differentiated bodies: one housing the services, and the other an auditorium to host concerts and congresses.

The first volume is orthogonal, relatively conventional and resolved with a minimum number of elements, while the auditorium features curvilinear lines both vertically and horizontally. The intermediate area, with the support of a wooden pergola running parallel to the street, acts as an atrium for the entrance to the lower building and as a terrace for the bar nestled under the stage. From street level, you cross a wide system of entrances signalled by the pergola, and once past the main entrance a large lobby appears that occupies the entire area of the hall on the upper storey. This space houses the box office and three sets of staircases, as well as the restrooms. Each of the staircases starts at ground level and reaches the intermediate foyer, which is also located under the main hall. The staircase then ascends a second flight until reaching the auditorium.

A structure of 19 concrete beams made in situ and laid out radially resolve the span between the large girder located above the stage and the end of the auditorium, with an intermediate girder supported on columns whose shape was intuitively determined in a quest to express the direction of the forces. The floor of the auditorium, which seats 1,500 people, is partly inclined towards the edge of the stage, making landings 45 centimetres wide echoed by the shape of the ceiling and walls. This configuration enhances the acoustic properties of the auditorium, which has to adapt to a variety of configurations.

Aalto clad the exterior walls of the auditorium in red brick, a material easily adapted to the curvilinear lines and contrasting with the greenish tones of the copper roof. The aprons of the offices ’windows are made of corrugated copper sheeting for greater visual vibrancy. The staircase, clad in terra cotta, has a continuous brass rail whose details change when they reach the first storey, where the cladding shifts to oak while the rail becomes a thin, black steel tube supported on a white panel. As was his wont, Aalto painstakingly designed the details in key places, such as the handles on the entrance doors, made of oak and brass and variable in design according to whether they must be pushed or pulled, the complex entrance pergola and the changes in plane in the brick wall.

Fernando Alvarez Prozorovich