Minimal Information Content in Finnish Architecture

Abstract

In this essay I look at how various ideas
and conceptions of Finnish architecture
have endured and discuss theoretical accounts
suggesting why they do so.
The reception of works can be said
to depend to a significant extent on attributing meaning
that we have learnt in advance,
and resemblance may be more easily discernible
when the factors share a minimal information content,
just as the abstraction of the smiley face
could represent everyone.
This then may allow us to see no contradiction between
peasant symbolism, humanism, modernity
and estrangement, so central to the construction
of Finnish Architecture, as well as allowing
parallels to examples in other cultures,
be it Danish or Japanese.