Alvar Aalto Reading room of Paimio Sanatorium

Series Window Behaviorology on Nordic Architecture

Alvar Aalto
Reading room of Paimio Sanatorium

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto Laboratory (Institute of Science Tokyo)

23 Dec 2025

Keywords: Architecture; Columns

In the reading room on the mezzanine floor of the cafeteria atrium the window is framed by delicate ironwork and features awning windows in the upper section, of which every two windowpanes can be simultaneously opened by pulling a chain that revolves a gear at the intersection of the two frames. In order to bear the weight of the open windows, the middle of the frames is reinforced with buttresses. The windows were made at a shipyard in Turku. A radiator is installed under the grating.

Opening and closing mechanism of projecting window using gears

Reading room of Paimio Sanatorium
Alvar Aalto
Paimio, 1933

This article is an excerpt from “Windows Stranding the Ethnological and Industrial Networks,” a joint research project concerning windows and the behaviors around them done in collaboration with Institute of Science Tokyo’s Yoshiharu Tsukamoto Laboratory.