Editing Alvar Aalto (section)

===Early career: functionalism===
The shift in Aalto's design approach from classicism to modernism is epitomised by the [[Vyborg Library|Viipuri Library]] in [[Vyborg]] (1927–35), which went through a transformation from an originally classical competition entry proposal to the completed high-modernist building. His humanistic approach is in full evidence in the library: the interior displays natural materials, warm colours, and undulating lines. Due to problems related to financing, compounded by a change of site, the Viipuri Library project lasted eight years. During that time, Aalto designed the Standard Apartment Building (1928–29) in Turku, the Turun Sanomat Building (1929–30), and the Paimio Sanatorium (1929–32), which he designed in collaboration with his first wife [[Aino Aalto]]. A number of factors contributed to Aalto's shift towards modernism: his increased familiarity with international trends, facilitated by his travels throughout Europe; the opportunity to experiment with concrete prefabrication in the Standard Apartment Building; the cutting-edge [[Le Corbusier]]-inspired formal language of the Turun Sanomat Building; and Aalto's application of both in the [[Paimio Sanatorium]] and in the ongoing design for the library. Although the Turun Sanomat Building and Paimio Sanatorium are comparatively pure modernist works, they carried the seeds of his questioning of such an orthodox modernist approach and a move to a more daring, synthetic attitude. It has been pointed out that the planning principle for Paimio Sanatorium – the splayed wings – was indebted to the Zonnestraal Sanatorium (1925–31) by Jan Duiker, which Aalto visited while it was under construction.<ref>{{harvnb|Hipeli|2014|p=116}}</ref> While these early Functionalist bear hallmarks of influences from [[Le Corbusier]], [[Walter Gropius]], and other key modernist figures of central Europe, Aalto nevertheless started to show his individuality in a departure from such norms with the introduction of organic references.

Through Sven Markelius, Aalto became a member of the [[Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne]] (CIAM), attending the second congress in Frankfurt in 1929 and the fourth congress in Athens in 1933, where he established a close friendship with [[László Moholy-Nagy]], [[Sigfried Giedion]], and [[Philip Morton Shand]]. It was during this time that he closely followed the work of the main force driving the new modernism, [[Le Corbusier]], visiting him in his Paris office several times in the following years.

It was not until the completion of the Paimio Sanatorium (1932) and Viipuri Library (1935) that Aalto first achieved world attention in architecture. His reputation grew in the US following the invitation to hold a retrospective exhibition of his works at MOMA in New York in 1938. (This was his first visit to the States.) The exhibition, which later went on a 12-city tour of the country, was a landmark: Aalto was the second-ever architect – after Le Corbusier – to have a solo exhibition at the museum. His reputation grew in the US following the critical reception of his design for the Finnish Pavilion at the [[1939 New York World's Fair]], described by [[Frank Lloyd Wright]] as a "work of genius".<ref>{{harvnb|McCarter|2006|p=143}}</ref> It could be said that Aalto's international reputation was sealed with his inclusion in the second edition of Sigfried Giedion's influential book on Modernist architecture, ''Space, Time, and Architecture: The growth of a new tradition'' (1949), in which Aalto received more attention than any other Modernist architect, including [[Le Corbusier]]. In his analysis of Aalto, Giedion gave primacy to qualities that depart from direct functionality, such as mood, atmosphere, intensity of life, and even national characteristics, declaring that "Finland is with Aalto wherever he goes."