Finnish Architect Janne Terasvirta to Present Lectures Nov. 10 and 11

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ALA Architects Ltd. recently completed the renovation and expansion of the City Theatre in Kuopio, Finland, which re-opened in September 2014. (Image courtesy ALA Architects Ltd.)

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Janne Teräsvirta will present a lecture titled “Re: Public Architecture” at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 10, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville, as part of the Fay Jones School of Architecture lecture series.

In addition, he will present a lecture Tuesday, Nov. 11, at the Arkansas Arts Center, 501 E. 9th St., in Little Rock. That lecture begins at 6 p.m. in the center’s Lecture Hall, following a 5:30 p.m. reception, and is part of the Architecture and Design Network’s 2014-15 series of public lectures.

Teräsvirta is one of the founding partners of ALA Architects Ltd., based in Helsinki, Finland, and is the company’s chief executive officer. He studied architecture in Helsinki, Finland and Delft, The Netherlands. He is a member of the Finnish Association of Architects (SAFA) and a representative in its Delegates’ Council, as well as a board member in the Practicing Architects’ Committee. He also serves in the managing board of the Open House Helsinki organization. Alongside his practice, Teräsvirta teaches public building design at Aalto University in Helsinki and is a visiting professor at CEDIM Centro de Estudios Superiores de Diseño de Monterrey in Mexico.

Teräsvirta has earned more than 20 awards in design competitions worldwide, most recently first prize in the international competition for the new Helsinki Central Library, which attracted 548 entries. Projects by ALA have been widely published internationally. Work by the office has received numerous awards and nominations, including the 2014 Architizer A+ jury award in the Theaters and Performing Arts Venues category. In 2012, the four partners of the firm were granted the prestigious Finnish State Prize for Architecture.

The collaboration between Teräsvirta and his three fellow ALA partners, Juho Grönholm, Antti Nousjoki and Samuli Woolston, started in 2004 through success in open architectural competitions. The winning entry in the 2005 open international competition for the new theater and concert hall in Kristiansand, Norway (known today as Kilden Performing Arts Centre), became their first major building commission. Today, ALA is recognized as one of the most innovative and influential architecture offices in the Nordic countries, with a portfolio of work that is sensual and experiential, while also functional and diagrammatic. Emerging from the generation of pragmatic young Northern European architects, ALA’s approach has developed toward an area where the ultra-rational collides with the irrational.

ALA currently employs 40 architects, students and staff members from international backgrounds. The four partners share the creative responsibility and copyright of all the office’s production, and are directly involved with all aspects of the design work. They take a hands-on approach at the critical stages of each project. While their built contribution has dealt distinctively with cultural buildings and the public domain, ALA also has succeeded in competitions for major master planning projects, housing, offices and hotels, as well as executed designs for apartments and stores.

ALA’s projects currently under construction include a regional city theater in Lappeenranta, Eastern Finland and two new subway stations along the western extension of the Helsinki Metro. The office also is working on the design for the new Helsinki Central Library, a new passenger ferry terminal for Helsinki’s West Harbour, the renovation of the Finnish Embassy in New Delhi, the renovation of the Norwegian Embassy in Helsinki and the renovation of Dipoli (the former student union building of Helsinki University of Technology, which is now being turned into the main building of Aalto University). Other current projects include three new stations along the second leg of the extension of the Helsinki subway and the expansion of the Kilden Performing Arts Centre, which originally was opened in January 2012. ALA’s most recently completed project was the renovation and expansion of the City Theatre in Kuopio, Finland, which re-opened in September 2014.

The Fayetteville lecture is the 2014 Dean’s Lecture in Nordic Architecture, in promotion of the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.

The public is invited to attend. Admission is free, with limited seating. For more information, contact 479-575-4704 or architecture.uark.edu.

The Little Rock lecture is part of the 2014-15 Art of Architecture lecture series, which is sponsored by the Architecture and Design Network, a non-profit organization, with support from the Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Arkansas Arts Center, the Fay Jones School of Architecture and community members. It is free and open to the public. For more information, contact ardenetwork@icloud.