Mikko Laaksonen’s Concrete Modernism: Pekka Pitkänen 1927–2018 (Dom Publishers, 2021) is a long awaited monograph of the acclaimed Finnish modernist.
Pekka Pitkänen (1927 – 2018) was one of the most significant Finnish architects of the post-war period. He is known as a master of concrete and a steadfast adherent of the modernist approach to architecture. The Chapel of the Holy Cross (1967) in Turku is frequently regarded as Pitkänen’s principal work. From the 1950s to the 1980s, he built numerous residential and commercial buildings in Turku, often in collaboration with the construction company Urakoitsijat Oy. Together with Ola Laiho and Ilpo Raunio, he designed the extension of the Finnish Parliament (1978). Late in his career, he focused on public buildings, his last being Turku Courthouse, completed in 1997.
This book is the first English-language monograph dedicated to Pekka Pitkänen. Based on extensive archival research, interviews, and Pitkänen’s own unpublished memoirs, it presents a singular insight into the life and work of a prolific yet surprisingly little-known modernist architect.
– Mikko Laaksonen, Concrete Modernism: Pekka Pitkänen 1927–2018 (Dom Publishers, 2021), description from the publisher’s website
The text is in English (there is a Finnish edition also available). The book has been lavishly illustrated with photographs and architectural drawings.
For more information about Pekka Pitkänen’s architecture, please visit finnisharchitecture.fi/architect/pekka-pitkanen/.
We are proud to carry this fine publication in our catalogue.