Alvar Aalto's unpretentious houses hold many lessons in our perilous economic times.

Slate
Architecture
What we build.
April 27 2011 11:12 AM

A Low-Key High Modernist

The unpretentious houses of Alvar Aalto.

Slide Show: The Unpretentious Houses of Alvar Aalto

Click here to read a slide show about Alvar Aalto's architecture.

Witold Rybczynski is Slate's architecture critic His latest book is The Biography of a Building: How Robert Sainsbury and Norman Foster Built a Great Museum. Visit his Web site. Follow him on Twitter.