This is the third in a bimonthly series of photo-essays featuring objects from the Artek and the Aaltos exhibition and additional photographs, sketches, and other ephemera from the Aalto Family Collection.

Located on the shore of Lake Alajärvi in western Finland, Villa Flora is one of the few architectural projects from the 1920s credited solely to Aino Marsio-Aalto. Originally built in 1926 and expanded in 1938, Villa Flora served as the Aaltos’ vacation home, where they would have stayed during midsummer celebrations. The photographs of the house below, which show both house and the playhouse Marsio-Aalto built for the children in the yard, come mostly from the Aaltos’ family albums.


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Page from album with photographs of Villa Flora. Aalto Family Collection.
Page from album with photographs of Villa Flora. Aalto Family Collection.
Page from album with photographs of the Aaltos and their children at Lake Alajärvi. Aalto Family Collection.
Page from album with photographs of the children’s playhouse at Villa Flora. Aalto Family Collection.
Aino Marsio-Aalto. Villa Flora before extensions, ca. 1926. Alvar Aalto Museum, 86-003-006.
Aino Marsio-Aalto. Villa Flora, ca. 1942. Watercolor on paper. Aalto Family Collection.


Kirstin Purtich, Project Assistant Curator for Artek and the Aaltos: Creating a Modern World, is an alumna of the Bard Graduate Center master’s program.