With a population of about five million, Finland has one lake for every 26 people. Boat ownership is relatively common and Finland is among the countries with the most boats per capita. In the spring of 2023, the only boat ever designed by Alvar Aalto was displayed for the first time in Jyväskylä harbor following extensive renovation. Designed by the Finnish architect in the early 1950s, the black-hulled wooden motorboat was used for shopping, island hopping trips and guest transport to and from his experimental summerhouse on Muuratsalo island in Lake Päijänne, central Finland. It would be natural to assume that Aalto’s boat is a work of genius, a boat that redefines what a floating vessel can be in a humanistic, functional-yet-elegant tradition, like his architecture itself. But what makes it all the more remarkable is how unremarkable it is. In fact, this relatively mundane boat tells the story of an architect who was just as fallible as anyone else. This story is from Kinfolk Issue Forty-Eight Buy Now Related Stories Design Interiors Issue 49 Mimi Shodeinde An audience with the architect. Design Issue 48 Studio Visit: Anupama Kundoo The Berlin-based architect knows what the city of the future should look like. In fact, she’s already built it. Design Issue 48 Off to Sea with Cyrill Gutsch Meet the self-appointed design ambassador for the oceans. Design Interiors Issue 43 Vincent Van Duysen At home with the cult architect. Arts & Culture Design Issue 36 Alexis Sablone Not many architects skate for their country, and not many skateboarders design the parks they skate in. Design Issue 33 Archive: Roberto Burle Marx Buoyed by the bossa nova experimentalism of mid-century Brazil, an opera-loving landscape architect struck out against the diktats of cool modernism.
Design Issue 48 Studio Visit: Anupama Kundoo The Berlin-based architect knows what the city of the future should look like. In fact, she’s already built it.
Design Issue 48 Off to Sea with Cyrill Gutsch Meet the self-appointed design ambassador for the oceans.
Arts & Culture Design Issue 36 Alexis Sablone Not many architects skate for their country, and not many skateboarders design the parks they skate in.
Design Issue 33 Archive: Roberto Burle Marx Buoyed by the bossa nova experimentalism of mid-century Brazil, an opera-loving landscape architect struck out against the diktats of cool modernism.
