Skateboarding in swimming pools: the case of Alvar Aalto’s Villa Mairea
Exploring skateboarding in swimming pools, a series of exhibitions is opening this weekend at the Aalto2 Museum Centre in Jyväskylä, Finland. The shows zoom into the enduring – and possibly unexpected – legacy of Finnish modernist architecture master Alvar Aalto on the culture of skateboarding.
In 1939, Aalto – in collaboration with his wife, Aino – designed Villa Mairea, an experimental private home in rural southwestern Finland. In its grounds, he integrated a kidney-shaped concrete swimming pool that has since become iconic – both as a precursor to the rise of similar midcentury pool designs, and as a structure that would be unexpectedly adapted by skateboarders in the US as a perfect basin to skate in.