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Aalto2 Workshops for Groups
Come and try things out and learn through experience at the Alvar Aalto Museum
The Alvar Aalto Museum runs themed group workshops both for adults and for children. Come and spend a recreational day or simply have an enjoyable time at an experience-filled workshop with your team or your friends. You can also arrange a great birthday party where you have fun finding out about architecture, design and construction. There are ready-planned topics to choose from, but other workshop topics can be tailored to suit your interests and specific needs. And you can take any objects you make in the workshop home with you.
Each themed workshop package includes: a guided tour of the permanent exhibition AALTO – Work and Life focusing on the theme in question; workshop guidance and materials in workshop space Kulma; and, if you like, an additional fee gets you coffee or a meal in the Aalto2 Cafe.
Altogether, a workshop lasts 1.5–2 hours. Adult workshops can have 6–20 participants and children’s workshops 6–16 participants. Bookings are to be made at least two weeks in advance to give time to create the best possible workshop experience. Workshops can be cancelled up to 2 days before the arranged date. Once a booking has been made, the full fee will be charged if it has not been cancelled by this deadline.
More information:
saara.mustonen@alvaraalto.fi
tuija.nieminen@alvaraalto.fi
The Museum also holds open public workshops to accompany events and changing exhibitions. Current public workshops are listed on the Aalto2 events page.
You can make a reservation through the form located at the bottom of the page.
Workshops for adults
Workshops are held during museum opening hours from Tuesday to Saturday.
Duration: 1.5–2 hours
Price: €300 + VAT
Group size: 6–20 persons
Be inspired by Aino - Aino Aalto 130th anniversary workshop
Be inspired by Aino Aalto’s designs and make a pattern on your own canvas bag using fabric printing. Give your pattern rhythm and play around with it! The workshop gives you a chance to study the design language of objects and architecture, and to create a pattern based on them to be printed on cloth.
Dreams in Miniature - A House like a Jewellery Box
In the exhibition: find out about the private houses designed by Aalto and the materials used in them. In the workshop: paying special attention to different shapes and details, you build a scale model of a house from a cardboard box. You can, for example, use your little house to keep jewellery or souvenirs in – a nice memento of the workshop to take away with you.
Dreams in Miniature - In the World of Design, Mastering the Classics
Explore the Aaltos’ designs, such as glassware, light fittings and furniture. Design and make your own new design product – a future classic. The range of available materials is attractive, diverse, and plentiful, so there is lots of room for creativity. Choose a material you like and shape it into a miniature classic.
Dreams in Miniature - Room of Your Dreams
Fall in love with scale models and interiors, especially of residential buildings. Furniture, light fittings, and other interior elements are also in the spotlight. Inspired by the exhibition, in the workshop space you create a scale model of a room where your dreams can come true. Then decorate the room with furniture, textiles and other interior elements to suit your taste.
Dreams in Miniature - Miniature Garden
In the exhibition: explore the relationship between Aalto’s buildings and the landscape around them, and reflect on how the architectural solutions exist in dialogue with the surrounding nature and garden. In the workshop space: you make a scale building and garden using various green plants and succulents. A wide range of other materials is also available.
Architecture and Nature
Explore the exhibition with an emphasis on the special connection between Aalto’s architecture and nature and its elements. Consider how the buildings fit into their surroundings and how nature and organic forms have served as starting points for Aalto’s architectural design. In the workshop space: you design and make a scale model of a building based on your insights. You use various natural materials for your construction.
Workshops for Children
Workshops are held during museum opening hours from Tuesday to Saturday.
Duration: 1.5–2 hours
Price: €200 + VAT
Group size: 6–16 persons
Children’s workshops are most suitable for children over 6 years and make a fun birthday party. You can also coordinate with the Aalto2 Cafe on catering for the party.
Sweet Town
Explore the Museum building and the shapes, materials, proportions and structures of the exhibits from various angles using your different senses. In the workshop space: you assemble houses, libraries, factories and other city buildings. You make them out of sweets, biscuits, and cocktail sticks using what you have learned on your exhibition tour.
Villa Mairea’s residents
We view and study a scale model of the Alvar Aalto-designed Villa Mairea. Together we imagine the people who live in the house and their lives there, and invent stories about them. In the workshop space: you build a one-room scale model for the people in our story – the residents of the house. The diverse materials add motivation and encourage play.
Grow Small – Miniature Garden
The exhibition tour pays special attention to the relationship between Aalto’s buildings and nature. What kinds of garden and garden objects are there in the exhibition? After the tour, you create your own miniature garden out of various plants and other fun materials.
Feel the Chair
We explore the exhibition space looking for different chair models designed by Aino and Alvar Aalto. Examine the structures, materials and shapes of the chairs and devise your own miniature chair. Based on your design, in the workshop you create your own chair model and show it to the others. What kind of chair would be really good to sit on? What would your favourite chair be like?