'Annual Rings: The Wood Program at Aalto University' Displayed Through Oct. 8 in Vol Walker Hall

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"Annual Rings: The Wood Program at Aalto University," an exhibition of work from the university in Helsinki, Finland, will be on display Aug. 26 through Oct. 8 in Vol Walker Hall.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – "Annual Rings: The Wood Program at Aalto University," an exhibition of work from the university in Helsinki, Finland, will be on display Aug. 26 through Oct. 8 in the Fred and Mary Smith Exhibition Gallery in Vol Walker Hall on the University of Arkansas campus.

An opening reception will be held at 12:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 26. Philip Tidwell, an architect and co-curator of the exhibition, will provide a gallery talk at 1 p.m. Friday.

"Annual Rings" is produced by the Museum of Finnish Architecture and the Wood Program at Aalto University, both in Helsinki, Finland. The exhibition describes the vitality of Finnish wood architecture over the past two decades and also celebrates the Wood Program's 20th anniversary. It is part of the school's focus on contemporary timber and wood architecture and design.

Finland is a nation priding itself on its long-established woodworking traditions and widespread appreciation for quality craftsmanship. But the last 20 years have seen particularly remarkable development in Finnish wood construction. Since 1994, the government and the wood building industry have invested strongly in research, development and education related to wood architecture and construction.

The Finnish Wood Award, inaugurated in 1994, has now been awarded 16 times, and educational programs devoted to wood architecture now receive widespread recognition. Alongside these efforts, and with some help from them, wood architecture in Finland has again become vital and recognized throughout the world.

The "Annual Rings" exhibition presents this recent development in two parts. The first set of projects, which was displayed in the school in spring 2015, was selected from professional production over the past two decades. This second group focuses on the Wood Program at Aalto University and the work produced by students in its design/build curriculum since 1994.

The current exhibition presents the work of the Aalto University Wood Program, a design-build studio organized annually in Helsinki for more than 20 years. Today, the studio forms part of a yearlong curriculum of lectures, excursions and workshop exercises. Over the past 20 years, 360 students from 42 countries around the world have designed and built almost 30 experimental projects as part of the program. The exhibition documents those projects in drawings, photographs and wooden models.

Curators of the exhibition are Pekka Heikkinen, professor in wood architecture at Aalto University, and Philip Tidwell, an architect. The exhibition design is also by Heikkinen and Tidwell. In addition, Heikkinen will be among the presenters at the "New Languages of Wood" symposium hosted by the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design on Aug. 26 and 27.

This exhibition was co-produced by the Fay Jones School with support from Lakea Oy, Metsä Wood, Puuinfo and Suomen Tuulileijona LLC.

Admission to the exhibition is free. The exhibition gallery is located on the first floor of Vol Walker Hall, and it is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.