ABSTRACT
Eric Bryggman's design for the Vaasa project nevertheless raised two significant issues concerning the expression of a commercial building in the functionalist style. These are the continuous horizontal window for the upper office floors and the double-storey entrance at street level as related to the shopping units. Both Bryggman's second-prize entry in the Paimio Sanatorium competition and his project for the South Karelian Sanatorium competition make it clear that he was second only to Aalto in the evolution of Finnish functionalism. By the end of the 1920s, other Finnish architects who had made their mark in that decade with work in the classical mode began to embrace functionalism. In the transformation from the classical vein to the functionalist mode there are clearly new problems of proportion, balance and emphasis. Functionalist leanings and concern to make architecture act as a bridge between intelligent rationalism and communion with nature, all these attitudes generate a complex coexistence.
