Alvar Aalto Enso-Gutzeit Co. Headquarters - WINDOW RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Series Window Behaviorology on Nordic Architecture

Alvar Aalto
Enso-Gutzeit Co. Headquarters

Yoshiharu Tsukamoto Laboratory (Institute of Science Tokyo)

16 Apr 2026

Keywords: Architecture; Columns

Located on the axis of the Esplanadi park facing the harbor, this building is clad in Carrara marble, so that its columns and beams match the white cornices of the neoclassical buildings that line the esplanade. Small windows for ventilation and fixed windows are installed within the square grid. The exterior frame is made of teak, which is resistant to salt damage, and the interior is framed in teak and red pine. The marble panels are evenly sloped on both sides of the columns and around the windows where they are exposed to rain.

Enso-Gutzeit Co. Headquarters
Alvar Aalto
Kanavaranta, Helsinki, 1962

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.