Vyborg Library
Encyclopedia
Vyborg
Vyborg is a town in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, situated on the Karelian Isthmus near the head of the Bay of Vyborg, to the northwest of St. Petersburg and south from Russia's border with Finland, where the Saimaa Canal enters the Gulf of Finland...
, Russia, (built during Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
rule when the city's name was Viipuri in Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
) is an internationally acclaimed design by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto
Alvar Aalto
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was a Finnish architect and designer. His work includes architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware...
. The library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
, built in 1933–35 is considered one of the first manifestations of "regional modernism". It is particularly famous for its wave-shaped ceiling in the auditorium
Auditorium
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...
, the shape of which, Aalto argued, was based on acoustic studies. On completion the library was known as Viipuri Library, but after the Second World War was renamed the Nadezhda Krupskaya Municipal Library. Nowadays it is known as The Central City Alvar Aalto Library.
History
Aalto received the commission to design the library after winning first prize (with his proposal titled 'WWW') in an architectural competitionArchitectural design competition
An architectural design competition is a special type of competition in which an organization or government body that plans to build a new building asks for architects to submit a proposed design for a building. The winning design is usually chosen by an independent panel of design professionals...
for the building held in 1927. Aalto's design went through a profound transformation from the original architectural competition proposal designed in the Nordic Classicism
Nordic Classicism
Nordic Classicism was a style of architecture that briefly blossomed in the Nordic countries between 1910 and 1930....
style (owing much to Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund
Gunnar Asplund
Erik Gunnar Asplund was a Swedish architect, mostly known as a key representative of Nordic Classicism of the 1920s, and during the last decade of his life as a major proponent of the modernist style which made its breakthrough in Sweden at the Stockholm International Exhibition...
, especially his Stockholm City Library) to the severely functionalist
Functionalism (architecture)
Functionalism, in architecture, is the principle that architects should design a building based on the purpose of that building. This statement is less self-evident than it first appears, and is a matter of confusion and controversy within the profession, particularly in regard to modern...
building, completed eight years later in a purist modernist style
Modern architecture
Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely...
. Such architectural solutions as a sunken reading-well, free-flowing ceilings and cylindrical skylights, first tested in Viipuri, would regularly appear in Aalto's works. Aalto differed from the first generation of modernist architects (such as Walter Gropius
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
and Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
) in his predilection for natural materials: in this design, "wood was first introduced into an otherwise modernist setting of concrete, white stucco, glass, and steel".
World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
marked a turning point in the history not only of the library but the city of Vyborg itself, as it was ceded to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. The building had been damaged during WWII, and plans by the new Soviet authorities to repair it were proposed but never carried out. The building then remained empty for a decade, causing even more damage, including the destruction of the wave-shaped auditorium ceiling. During the 1950s schemes were drawn up for its restoration — including a version in the Stalinist classical style
Stalinist architecture
Stalinist architecture , also referred to as Stalinist Gothic, or Socialist Classicism, is a term given to architecture of the Soviet Union between 1933, when Boris Iofan's draft for Palace of the Soviets was officially approved, and 1955, when Nikita Khrushchev condemned "excesses" of the past...
typical of the time — by architect Aleksandr Shver.
Until the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
, few people from Finland, let alone other Western countries, visited Vyborg, and there were many different accounts in Western architectural texts about the condition of the library, including erroneous reports of its complete destruction. The building is now included in the Russian Federation's list of objects of historical and cultural heritage. Russian and Finnish committees have been founded to promote the restoration of the building, which has been progressing piecemeal, while the building remains in public use. The restoration is being directed by the Alvar Aalto Academy, under the direction of architect Tapani Mustonen, together with input from architect Maija Kairamo (formerly of the Finnish National Board of Antiquities) and ex-Aalto employees, architects Eric Adlercreutz
Eric Adlercreutz
Eric Adlercreutz is a Finnish architect, and head of the Helsinki-based architecture firm A-Konsultit, founded in 1962 together with his wife Gunnel Adlercreutz. His reputation is based on having won over twenty national architecture competitions over the duration of his career. He is also a...
, Vazio Nava and Leif Englund. In 1998, to mark the 100th anniversary of Aalto's birth, a 2×10-metre section of the auditorium ceiling was reconstructed, but it was taken down in 2008 to enable the reconstruction of the ceiling proper. To date (2009), the following parts of the building have been restored: the large glass wall in front of the main stairs; the roofs (including the cylindrical roof-lights); the steel windows and external doors; entrance to the children's library; the former janitor's flat; the periodicals reading room; the auditorium, including reconstruction of the undulating suspended ceiling. Due to piecemeal funding, the restoration has progressed slowly. The restorers have emphasised that the work has progressed in terms of greatest urgency; thus, to the casual observer, the interior walls still have flaking paint, giving an impression of lack of maintenance; but the restorers argue that this is the least important aspect of the work, compared to significant structural repairs. To mark the progress of the restoration, a book outlining both the history of the building and the restoration work was published in 2009, "Alvar Aalto Library in Vyborg: Saving a Modern Masterpiece", edited by Kairamo, Mustonen and Nava.
In September 2003 an international seminar and workshop was held at the library, under the auspicies of DOCOMOMO, to discuss the restoration of the library, as well as its role within the local community. Experts in restoration from around the world attended.
The library has also been the starting point for a very different kind of art project, a film titled What's the time in Vyborg? (2002) by Finnish-American artist Liisa Roberts. Roberts was challenging the introspective view Finns have of their former city, by organising and filming writing workshops arranged for local Vyborg youths.
Quotes
When I designed the Viipuri City Library (and I had plenty of time, a whole five years), I spent long periods getting my range, as it were, with naive drawings. I drew all kinds of fantastic mountain landscapes, with slopes lit by many suns in different positions, which gradually gave rise to the main idea of the building. The architectural framework of the library comprises several reading and lending areas stepped at different levels, with the administrative and supervisory centre at the peak. My childlike drawings were only indirectly linked with architectural thinking, but they eventually led to an interweaving of the section and ground plan, and to a kind of unity of horizontal and vertical construction. (Alvar Aalto, "The Trout and the Stream", 1947)