Over the years Juhani Pallasmaa has developed a tremendous influence worldwide. As a board member of the Pritzker Prize since 2009, he leads the perception of architecture. Generous and full of energy, permanently travelling around the world, he has an impact on generations of architects through his teaching. His research spans at the same time cultural, philosophical and theoretical fields. In his lectures and writings Juhani Pallasmaa has had a fundamental, revolutionary effect on attitudes; just no one was left indifferent. In his book “Animal Architecture” published in 1995 he looks with the eyes of an architect a world built of a rich and incredible ingenuity and shows that animals have the tools to produce high performance materials and to create complex habitats well integrated in their territory. There is a structural homology between animal and human architecture. In the same way, ten years later, his book "The Eyes of the Skin" can be seen as an attack against the present architectural discourse. He denounced the hegemony of the eye in our society defends the necessity for the architects to take account of the richness and the complexity of sensory perceptions." He denounced the hegemony of the eye in our society and tries to reformulate the beauty of the world’s human perception. The work of Juhani Palasmaa challenges us to open our minds to the dangers of a reductive minimalism or exhibitionist architecture only based on the visual sense.When Juhani Pallasmaa began his career, he defended rational thinking, emphasizing the importance of knowledge and technology. Later, he developed a more sensitive and more humanistic approach. His early experiences of simple farm life are reflected in his work as an architect. “I am even today unable to acknowledge boundaries between architecture and design, fine arts and philosophical investigation, or the spheres of life and work. I learned that everything should be done with care and attention, and the way one works reflects one’s attitude to life. Work is an essential part of the art of life and one’s self-identity and esteem.” When he was managing director of the Museum of Finnish Architecture in Helsinki from 1978 to 1983, Juhani Pallasmaa gave an international dimension to its activities exhibiting the works of such architects as Tadao Ando, Alvaro Siza and Daniel Libeskind, who only later became renowned throughout the world.

Nowadays he runs his own practice “Juhani Pallasmaa Architects” in Helsinki without leaving his other fields of activity and considers architecture “as an existential expression; buildings structure, express, and articulate our being-in-the-world”. He used to say: “My works are geometric and they appear abstract. Yet they are grounded on a view of distinct archaic meanings and mental impressions of form. Forms are gestures: when drawing horizontal lines, I imitate the superimposed horizontal zones of the Finnish landscape; when designing a column, I repeat the image of an upright human figure. When drawing a circle, I feel that I am making a gesture of integrity and singularity. Abstraction always implies a condensed and ambiguous image of the world, or more precisely, a union between the world and oneself. I am more interested in the essence of things than their shape. Architecture of essence usually leads to a state of meditation, whereas an architecture of form aims at captivating and dynamic compositions. (…) I would like to call my architectural approach ‘sensuous minimalism.’ As an architect, I wish to strengthen the silence of the world.”

www.pallasmaa.fi

1. Juhani Pallasmaa
© photo Adolfo Vera

2. Finnish Institute, Paris (1986-91)
© photo Gérard Dufresne

3. Arrival Plaza and astronomical structure, Cranbrook Academy, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1994 - with Dan Hoffman and the Cranbrook Architecture Studio)
© photo Balthazar Korab

4. Sami Lapp Museum, Inari, Lapland, Finland (1998)
© photo Rauno Träskelin

5. Kamppi Center, Helsinki (2006)

1) Juhani Pallasmaa

2) Finnish Institute, Paris (1986-91)

3) Arrival Plaza and astronomical structure, Cranbrook Academy, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1994 - with Dan Hoffman and the Cranbrook Architecture Studio)

4) Sami Lapp Museum, Inari, Lapland, Finland (1998)

5) Kamppi Center, Helsinki (2006)