The small-scale exhibition Architect Elissa Aalto is presented in the sauna building at Villa Skeppet, 12:00−16:00, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, 29.10−29.11.2022 (closed on All Saints´ Day 5.11). Villa Skeppet is open to the public at 17:00−19:30, Friday, 28.10.2022, when it will also celebrate the opening of the exhibition. This is a part of the Kulturlänken event. Read more here: https://villaskeppet.fi/en/aktuellt/open-house-event/

You are warmly welcome!

Architect Elissa Aalto exhibition tours in Alvar Aalto Cities

To commemorate the centenary of Elissa Aalto (1922-2022), the Alvar Aalto Foundation has produced the Architect Elissa Aalto touring exhibition showcasing the life’s work of this talented, tenacious designer. The exhibition began its tour at Lappia Hall in Rovaniemi in September and will open in October in two Alvar Aalto cities, Alarjärvi and Tammisaari. The exhibition sheds light on Elissa Aalto’s public and private role in the everyday life of Alvar Aalto’s architect’s office and alongside her famous architect husband. 

Elissa Aalto and Göran Schildt, worked to preserve Aalto’s heritage 

A small-scale exhibition Architect Elissa Aalto curated from the larger exhibition is to open in the sauna building at Villa Skeppet in Tammisaari. Villa Skeppet (1969−70), designed for Göran and Christine Schildt, was the last residential building planned by Alvar Aalto. Elissa and Alvar Aalto became family friends of the writer and philosopher Göran Schildt and both of his wives. Göran and Christine Schildt married in 1966, after which the Aaltos and Schildts spent a lot of time together. Christine Schildt remembers her friend Elissa Aalto as an especially jolly, warm-hearted person. “She was easy to be with and she spread joy around here. I have fond memories of Elissa Aalto and I am glad her life’s work is being highlighted during this anniversary year,” Christine Schildt says.

Elissa Aalto’s role as a mainstay of Alvar Aalto architect’s office and the Alvar Aalto Foundation was considerable. Göran Schildt was the primus motor behind the setting up of the Foundation, and, after Aalto’s death, he was for a long time the Foundation’s chairman and actively researched, wrote and lectured about Aalto’s architecture. Backed by Elissa Aalto and Göran Schildt, the architect’s office’s drawings and other archive materials were sold all in one piece to the Foundation, and organizing and cataloguing them began. The numerous completed projects, a number of carefully restored valuable buildings, and one of the world’s rare drawing collections to be preserved intact are left as a permanent record of Elissa Aalto’s life’s work. 

Further information:

Exhibition content and media enquiries
Alvar Aalto Foundation
Elissa Aalto 100 centenary year coordinator Mari Forsberg
+358 50 325 1909
mari.forsberg@alvaraalto.fi

Exhibition enquiries in Tammisaari
Christine and Göran Schildt Foundation 
Head of Organisation, Jennifer Dahlbäck 
+358 400 212 825 
jennifer@villaskeppet.fi 
www.villaskeppet.fi