Erkki Koiso-Kanttila as the designer of Lapland's type-planned houses

Abstract

Research into the post-war reconstruction period in Finland has mainly
focused on the national reconstructions massive production and building
processes and urban architecture; or issues regarding the housing
of returning soldiers and displaced civilians from Karelia. Laplands part
in particular has been neglected in the national history overviews, and
thus there is very little examination of the type-planned houses in the
area.

The architectural goals of the type-planned houses and their status
as the questionable representatives of modernism have been briefly
touched upon in post-war research. In the early studies, the designs of
the reconstruction period, type-planned houses in particular, received
much criticism. However, from the 1990s onwards the attitudes towards
them took a more positive turn. None of the studies or interviews have
paid much attention to the views of the designers regarding the goals
of the type-planned house designing process, or on the lack of building
materials at the time and its effects on the designing work. This paper
examines these issues from the point of view of an individual designer,
Erkki Koiso-Kanttila.

It is impossible for the decade-long criticism towards the reconstruction
period type-planned houses not to have affected the designers of these
houses. In the worst cases this criticism caused a sort of a trauma for the
designers, as they were shamed by it. This trauma was also noticeable
in the way Koiso-Kanttila felt about a significant, yet underestimated
phase of his career.