Villa Mairea - 'Proto-Mairea'

'Proto-Mairea'

In the early spring of 1938 the Gullichsens approved a design which Schildt has called the Proto-Mairea, on the basis of which construction began in the summer. The plan established the basic disposition of accommodation found in the finished house, with the dining situated in the corner between the family rooms and the servants' wing, and the bedrooms and Maire’s studio upstairs, the latter originally expressed as a free-form curve in elevation, rather than plan.

Aalto’s analysis of the activities to be accommodated produced a schedule of reception rooms which included an entrance hall with an open fireplace, a living room, a gentlemen’s room, a ladies’ room, a library, a music room, a winter garden, a table tennis room and an art gallery. It read more like the programme for a Victorian country house than a demonstration of the social-democratic dwelling of the future, and Aalto was far from satisfied with the design. A young Swiss student working in his office at the time recalls that he used to scold the model like a naughty dog, explaining to her that 'those people don’t need so many rooms'.