One of the great names of Finnish 20th century architecture, Pietilä rose to international fame when the established principles of modernism began to be questioned in the 1960s and 1970s. Raili (1926 - ) and Reima (1923 - 1993) Pietilä emphasize organic form and natural morphology, and their work is markedly distinctive from the mainstream of the latter half of the century. They created signature buildings experimenting with new forms, such as Dipoli in Espoo (1966), Main City Library in Tampere (1986) and the Presidents’s Residence in Helsinki (1993). Reima Pietilä was also an acute architectural theorist actively contributing to the discussion on the future of modernism in Finland as well as abroad.

The architecture of Raili and Reima Pietilä, which became world famous during the 1960s, will be experiencing a second coming in this exhibition at the Museum of Finnish Architecture. The exhibition will be using original drawings to present the work of the husband and wife team in the form of some previously unseen designs and others that have attained iconic status in the history of architecture. A host of sketches will show, in a fascinating way, how in their search for design solutions every possible alternative is of equal value to start with, until eventually, the buildings acquire their final forms - forms which stretch the boundaries of modern architecture. The various models will give the visitor an opportunity to observe, for example, how the architecture of the President’s Official Residence, Mäntyniemi (1983 - 93), evolved from the competition-winning proposal to the finished building.

At the same time as the Pietiläs began searching for a way forward for modern architecture, Reima Pietilä who was an active speaker and writer, began to enrich the potential of language as an instrument for understanding architectural problems. Both the exhibition and even more so the book of the same name, which is being published in conjunction with the exhibition, bring out Reima Pietilä’s inexhaustibly inquisitive and often playful explorations of the world of language. In a series of new articles, frontline architectural writers Juhani Pallasmaa, Aino Niskanen, Olli-Paavo Koponen and Kati Blom present viewpoints on the pluralistic world of Reima Pietilä, the challenger of modern architecture, that are shorn of the mystique often associated with him.

Thanks to Raili and Annukka Pietilä’s donation to the Museum of the entire Pietilä drawing archive plus some other material, it has been possible to compile an illustrated and annotated catalogue of works for the new publication that is as comprehensive as possible. In addition to such world-famous buildings as Dipoli (1966), the Metso public library in Tampere (1985) and Suvikumpu (1969 - 82), the complexity and richness presented in the catalogue, not to mention the exhibition and the other material, brings the Pietiläs once more into the centre of the ever-topical problem field of the potential of architecture.

Programme
05 March 2008
17:00 Introduction to the exhibition
18:00 Lecture: Architect Raili Pietilä "From a sketch to a building" 

12 March 2008 
17:00 Visit to Tove Jansson’s studio (designed by Raili and Reima Pietilä) 
18.00 Lecture: Professor Vilhelm Helander "Space and coonstructions in Pietilä’s architecture" 

26 March 2008 
17:00 Visit to Tove Jansson’s studio (designed by Raili and Reima Pietilä)
18:00 Lecture: Professor Aino Niskanen "The Pietiläs and their international connections"

02 April 2008
17:00 Introduction to the exhibition 
18:00 Lecture: Doctor Olli-Paavo Koponen "The central axis of Hervanta and the myth about the Finnishness of Reima Pietilä’s architecture"

16 April 2008
17:00 Introduction to the exhibition 
18:00 Lecture: Professor Riitta Nikula "Pietilä’s place"

07 May 2008
17:00 Bus tour of Espoo and Helsinki