In the 1930s, Alvar Aalto did what the rest of modernism would only arrive at decades later. The library in Vyborg is not about form but about function: an undulating ceiling for acoustics, light wells for natural light, a free plan so that “thinking would be easier.”
After the war, the building passed to the USSR and deteriorated for a long time. It was restored only in 2013, carefully and precisely. Today it is not just a library but one of the smartest projects of the 20th century, where everything works and nothing is superfluous.
