Reima Pietilä and the morphology of architectural language

Abstract

The development of the morphological component of language has characterised Reima Pietilä's work from her theoretical reflexions to the very understanding that the project results from a process of exploration between the imaginary and words. These neologisms translated into unprecedented concepts have served as a way of explaining highly complex design processes that are still highly relevant today, six decades later. This alteration of the Finnish language, based on the addition of prefixes or suffixes, or even proposing new nomenclatures, has served as a vehicle for reflection - dissenting from the design methodologies that characterised the contemporary architectural period of the mid-twentieth century - by Reima Pietilä himself. This avenue of exploration has served, from his first exhibitions and publications in Le Carre Bleu and Arkkitehti, such as "The Zone" (1, 1968) published in the latter where he expressed the need to develop new terminologies that express what he really thinks as an architect, even advocating the creation of a new Finnish terminology; even the use of this semantic methodology for the elaboration of the pseudonyms under which to present proposals for architectural competitions; as a key to access the understanding of the architectural project and thus be able to delve deeper into the work of Raili and Reima Pietilä. This reflection aims to highlight the power of the Pietilä's use of language, analysing how, through the pseudonyms "Hellitä Mäkivyötä meridiaani" (Be gentler, mountain zone meridiaani), "Luolamiesten häämarssi" (Wedding march of the cavemen) and "Tuohivirsut juoksuhaudassa" (Strips of birch bark in a dug-out), under which they won the three respective competitions for the Kaleva Church (1959), the Dipoli project (1961) and the Suvikumpu residential complex (1962); these have the capacity to reveal the architectural character of the work through the morphological alteration of the language by touching on themes that establish a network of connections between culture, landscape, and architecture.