Modernist hygiene

Paimio Sanatorium Terrace, Alvar and Aino Aalto, photo by Gustaf Welin, 1929 | alvaraalto.fi

Modernism and hygiene were more than mere acquaintances. They were friends from the start due to some of the movement’s basic considerations such as the sun, the wind and correct/suitable distances but also due to the historical events that brought modernism to the centre of things, offering the appropriate justifications like the Spanish flu pandemic and the tuberculosis outbreak. So, leading figures of the modernist movement suggested -roughly speaking- buildings designed with basic geometric forms, easily constructible by industry, with big openings and appropriate distances in between them and mostly painted white. That would guarantee sufficient lighting and ventilation for indoor spaces and viruses would spread less easily than before and these conditions would be accessible to as many people as possible.

The connection between hygiene and design, architecture or construction is not something new of course. Vitruvius, a mechanic of the Roman empire, has been a defining figure throughout the ages even though the context of his activity is rather peculiar for our modern tastes. Today it would be as if a mechanic of the U.S. Pentagon guided our ideas about beauty and health. Either way, in his widespread opus De Architectura he deals, among many other things, with the appropriate positioning of cities, far from moors and other unhygienic places, proper foundations to avoid humidity inside houses and further suggests whitewashing for a final layer of hygiene and active cleaning. This final stance especially on white surfaces and cleanliness in general is both a troubled/controversial and interesting moment of the modernist movement. 

Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeaneret, studio for Amédée Ozenfant, 1923 | e-flux.com

Richard Neutra, Lovell Health House, 1929 | metalocus.es

Modernism demands clarity and cleanliness in almost everything and that is where things can go wrong. It proposes something called truth to materials, it is obsessed with the life of the minimal and strives to figure everything out through minimum sizing, it denounces decorations as a crime and generally insists on white and hygiene. The clarity of the plan that is fragmented into specific functional zones, which ought to be expressed correctly and clearly in the volumes of the building, is appealing - although it refers more to functionalism which has several differences from modernism. The reasoning behind construction must also project its logical method, otherwise you have failed. The harsh light of the surgical lamp that separates everything mercilessly and leaves no room for mystifying half-lights and praise of shadows is part of the ideological fixations of the modernist movement that survive to this day, sometimes untouched.

At the same time, through the prism of therapy through design there are excellent examples such as the sanatorium program of the Finnish government, with the leading example of the Paimio sanatorium by Alvaar and Aino Alto. The program at the facility included fresh air, diet, exercise, rest and sunbathing which led to specific design choices. The terraces with the large openings, the open flat roof, the pavilion building in the forest and, of course, the holistic conception of colour both as a categorization of the spatial themes of the building and as therapy through the effect of the painted surfaces and elements, aid the treatment of the visitors/patients. This specific project also left the legacy of the Paimio reclining chairs, which were originally designed more as a medicinal device for afternoon sleep in the sanatorium than for pure pleasure, a rather Protestant point of view.

Paimo Sanatorium Entrance, Alvar and Aino Aalto, photo by Maija Holma, 1929 | alvaaralto.fi

Paimo Sanatorium, Alvar and Aino Aalto, photo by Gustaf Welin, 1929 | alvaaralto.fi

Paimio Sanatorium Rooms, Alvar and Aino Aalto, photo by Gustaf Welin, 1929 | alvaraalto.fi

Paimio Sanatorium Sink Drawing, Alvar and Aino Aalto, 1929 | alvaraalto.fi

Paimio Chairs, Alvar and Aino Aalto | cdnassets.net

All of this, at this point in time, may sound completely irrelevant and outdated or completely relevant as we are now beginning to exit from the black cloud of the Covid pandemic that has disrupted our lives and claimed so many lives. Fortunately, the basic level of physical hygiene, the architecture and the urban planning of our time have the means to meet it with relative ease, even if in Athens conditions are still somewhat suffocating. The epidemics that now seem closer are not viruses and tuberculosis since antibiotics and vaccines can combat them but they are problems of a psychological nature.

In the 21st century, various psychological disorders from depression, to ADHD and burnout take the form of a pandemic and architecture and design are called to respond. While these areas of knowledge indeed mainly concern the improvement of everyday life in more or less scientific ways, possibly the burden that the designers have on the one hand assumed and on the other hand has been assigned to them may be disproportionate to their scope of activity. When an entire culture promotes or doesn’t actively prevent these ailments, primarily for reasons of productivity and consumption, then the power of a designer’s line seems meagre. That is precisely the moment when architecture and design must practice plastic psychiatry to aesthetically elevate our lives in more dimensions than those of X-rays and MRIs.