I Traveled to Finland to See Alvar Aalto's Masterful Buildings—and It Changed How I Think About Midcentury Design

I Traveled to Finland to See Alvar Aalto's Masterful Buildings—and It Changed How I Think About Midcentury Design

On a tour of southern Finland, seeing the enduring masterworks of architect Alvar Aalto.JON SPARKS/ALAMY Finlandia Hall.When Finnish architects Alvar and Aino Aalto completed their Paimio Sanatorium in 1933, the streamlined building must have looked like an emissary from the future, set down in a forest of fragrant pine. Finland, which had emerged just 16 years earlier from centuries of rule by the Swedish and Russian Empires, remained, for the …