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House of Culture , Helsinki – architect Alvar Aalto, 1955 to 1958
The House of Culture in Helsinki is Aalto in his 'red brick period'. He achieves the free-form curves of the concert hall walls using wedge-shaped bricks, arranged variously with their shorter edge facing inside or outside the wall. The impact of the solid brick walls must be seen in the context of what had gone before. In Finland, the National-Romantics had used wood and granite to show closeness to Finnish nature, while the modern movement, as elsewhere, used more abstract white plaster surfaces, which did not wear well particularly in the Finnish climate. Aalto's red brick was therefore a bigger statement than it now seems: a man-made material that keeps its individuality and local personality. The House of Culture combines a concert hall in curved red brick, an office building, a conventional rectangle in form, but with a visually striking facade brought alive by greening copper, and a lecture-theatre block connecting the two.
The House of Culture (Kulttuuritalo) serves as a centre for the cultural work of various trade-union organizations. The office part has five storey’s with 110 offices, meeting rooms and two flats. In the lecture and conference room section, in the middle of the U-shaped complex, are a lecture hall, study rooms, discussion rooms, a library and a records room. The concert and congress hall is the main feature of the group. The hall, with 1500 seats and a stage 200 sq m, is primarily intended for concerts, but is also used for lectures. The various parts of the building are linked together along the street by a canopy 60m long, under which are the main entrances. The free asymmetrical form of the hall entailed the development of a new facing element, a wedge-shaped brick, with which all the curves of the irregular exterior could be realized.
The office wing is dressed in the iconography of a modernist office block, the theatre is crowned with the copper pitch roof of the traditional civic monument, while the porch oscillates between being a private entry or a public arcade.

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Taken on: June 19, 2012
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Camera: Nikon D7000, f/22.0, 1/100 sec, 22mm (=33mm), ISO 400 (more info) (hide info)
Camera: Nikon D7000
Lens: 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0
Aperture: f/22.0
Exposure Time: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Focal Length: 22mm (35mm equivalent: 33mm)
ISO: 400
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Flash: Off, Did not fire
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White Balance: Auto
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Software: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.2 (Windows)
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