Welcome to Aalto University
On behalf of the faculty and students of the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture I am happy to welcome the Interaction Design Community to our school and to Helsinki.
Our school was founded in 1871 when Finland was Grand Duchy in the Russian Empire. In Finland the nineteenth century was the beginning of it’s industrialization. The first steam machines, cotton factories, sawmills, railroads, electrical power and telephone — and our school’s first building, Ateneum, drawn by Theodor Hölje. The Ateneum building, next to the Helsinki railway station by our alumnus Eliel Saarinen is now the home of the Finnish National Gallery and definitely worth of a visit.
In 1980s the school moved to the shared facilities with the Arabia ceramics factory. The products of Arabia are known from their high quality and functionality — the ability to combine timeless aesthetics and practicality.
The Education Summit takes place in the Arabia building. From the block you will also find the Arabia Museum and Gallery as well as a the show room of the Fiskars, another Finnish design brand. Most of the designers of the Arabia and Fiskars are naturally our talented alumni. More Finnish Design classics you can find from the Design Museum in the city center.
You are also welcome to walk around the school building to see our students and faculty at work. The old factory building is a complex and hard to navigate. If you like a good challenge, try to find the Kipsari, the legendary student run cafeteria. Look to our volunteers for their help if you get lost or would like a more formal tour.
As you go around in the building you may see some abandoned rooms and spaces. This is because the school is moving yet again. This time we are heading to the main campus of the Aalto University, a new university found in 2010 via a merge of the Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki University of Technology and the University of Art and Design Helsinki (our School).
For this new campus we are actually constructing a brand new building; next to the iconic main building by Alvar Aalto. Yes, he is our alumnus, too. About half of our students and faculty are already in the new campus area, in temporary locations, waiting the new building to be completed.
The move to the building in a new campus is another new start for the school. Within Aalto we are part of a multidisciplinary university where science and art meet technology and business. This is visible in the interaction design research and education carried out in Aalto. Therefore Interaction Design is an important part of several programs, such as New Media, International Design Business Management, Industrial Design, Computer Science and Engineering, but also in Fashion, Product and Spatial Design, and Architecture. Often our students from different programs meet and work in study projects with strong interaction design aspect in them; this is modeled throughout the many of the Schools and departments of the Aalto.
We are very pleased to have you here and hope you enjoy your time on our campus.
