Daniele Belleri in The Ideas Letter:
Late last May, the prime ministers of Europe’s Nordic countries gathered in a former tuberculosis sanatorium hidden among the pine forests of southwestern Finland. It was an unlikely venue for a high-level diplomatic forum: Most parts of the building had been in disuse for a decade and needed restoration. But the symbolism was hard to miss. As the hybrid war waged by Vladimir Putin against the Old Continent loomed large over the talks, the Finnish government hosts were suggesting that healing and care can be political tools, too.
The venue, the Paimio Sanatorium, was designed in the early 1930s by Alvar and Aino Aalto and is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Modernist architecture. Erected when tuberculosis had no pharmacological treatment and was a leading cause of death, the building has been described as a “medical instrument” in itself. It distilled some of the principles that would define Finnish design in the following decades: functional restraint, social purpose, and quality accessible to all. From its noiseless sinks designed not to disturb patients to customized, easy-to-clean lamps and seats (now sold as fashionable objects), it stood out as a gesamtkunstwerk,a total work of art, that embedded empathy and efficiency down to the smallest details. Rooms were oriented so that patients, who might spend months or even years in the sanatorium, could be exposed to the outside forest and find relief in at least some contact with nature.
Last spring, the security agencies of northern Europe may have found this backdrop unexpected. But for more than a century, Finnish architecture and design has functioned as an instrument of nation-building. It supported the country’s independence process, then its consolidation as a highly functioning trust society, and finally the development of its comprehensive defense strategy. Local design has demonstrated the underlying political, even geopolitical, dimension of the built environment. Today, as Europe faces imperial pressures from both Russia and the US, that legacy is acquiring continental significance.
More here.
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