ABSTRACT
The work of Reima Pietila spans from the mid-1950s to 1993. His first building to receive wide attention war the Finnish Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, which was staged just at the point when Alvar Aalto's work began to show a decline in vigour. Pietila's design ideas bridge across from the theories of Aulis Blomstedt to some of Aalto's attitudes to architecture, but the body of his entire work is uniquely his own. Pietila's buildings, like those of Aalto, are distinctive; while his influence, also like that of Aalto, is small. There are possible references in the Brussels Pavilion to Aalto's Sports Hall for the Helsinki Technical University at Otaniemi, of which Pietila's pavilion might be viewed as a more specifically modular interpretation. Pietila's systematic approach to formal explorations was on view in his 'Morphology and Urbanism' exhibition at the Pinx Gallery, Helsinki.
