Posted by Kevin Matthews on March 24, 1999 at 14:06:36:
The beautiful Mount Angel Library by Alvar Aalto is sort of the architectural mascot of the Great Buildings Collection. A big reason for this is it is truly a great building itself. On the outside, the library is modest (though still distinctive) with a low, simple facade that effectively continues and completes a courtyard wall of building facades which encloses the flat green hilltop of Mount Angel, marking the shared community space of the monastery.
Then when you go inside, an amazing three-dimensional space opens before you, reaching up into the light above and down into the quiet spaces below, while at the same time reaching around you with a silently sensuous great embracing curve of space. The space literally strikes your heart with a silent joy.
Another reason the library is a touchstone for us is it's only less than an hour up the Willamette Valley from the Artifice headquarters here in Oregon. It means a lot to have such a building here in Oregon, and that idea that architectural beauty can arise and reside anywhere is part of the Great Buildings too.
The Mount Angel Library is one of only two buildings by Alvar Aalto in the United States (quick quiz: what and where is the other?). Aalto seems appropriate as an architect of synthesis, one of the defining modernists whose work never left touch with humanism, a significant innovator and master of technical logic who so often melded the spirit of organic nature into the daily beauty of his places.
As a European who never built great office towers, and who was not much promoted by the self-elected arbiters of the International Style, Aalto is not well known outside of serious architecture circles, especially in the US. A great building in America by a unique European connects with our goal of constructive cultural cross-fertilization. And in general the library relates to another idea of the Great Buildings, to widen access to the many hidden special beauties that do exist, to share the joy of them, and with hope to remind us of the possibility of great places in our own surroundings.
I invite you share some of your own thoughts and images on architecture here. I hope you'll enjoy this Great Buildings Architectural Scrapbook, and help to make it rich, friendly, diverse, and inspiring, through your use and contributions.
Best wishes,
Kevin Matthews
Artifice, Inc.