• Korean Architects
• /
• v.5 no.7 s.23
• /
• pp.8-41
• /
• 1970

• Journal of architectural history
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.43-57
• /
• 2006

The Villa Mairea (1937-39) designed by Alvar Aalto (1898-1976) has been studied by many researchers from various viewpoints. However, few studies have devoted their attention to the major issue raised by Aalto at the Yale University lecture and "Mairea" article in arkitekten in 1939. The issue is to fuse art with life in the living room with mobile partition walls that can function both as art exhibition walls and as art storage cabinets at the same time. Through this device, he maintained, the client can change displayed pictures easily according to the situation and so "painting and everyday life can evolve in a more direct manner." This paper argues that Aalto's concept originated from Japanese 'tokonoma' in Tetsuro Yoshida's Das japanische Wohnhaus (1935), which he referred to during the project. Differently from other Japanese features in the house, this tokonoma idea is more than formal, but more decisive than passing in driving the plan. And, whether coincidently or not, his idea exactly corresponds to Japanese aesthetes' and critics' own interpretation of the tononoma as the symbolic centre of Japanese people's everyday life. More importantly, however, this art display concept discloses secret strata of modern architecture during the time when the petrified rationalism was still at its power Even through the tokonoma motif alone, we see diverse trails in modern architecture: fusion of the East and the West, fusion of the traditional and the modern, to say nothing of fusion of art with life.