The Alvar Aalto Museum is a Finnish museum operating in two cities, Jyväskylä and Helsinki, in two locations each.

The Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyväskylä

This museum, which is specialised in architecture and design, is located in Jyväskylä. It was founded in 1966 to foster the legacy of the architecture of Alvar Aalto. The museum is located in a building designed by Aalto and completed in 1973.

The mission of the building heritage section of the museum is the protection of buildings designed by Alvar Aalto. It maintains a national register of protected Aalto buildings and gives expert assistance on matters relating to Aalto buildings. The building heritage section works in close cooperation with the Finnish National Board of Antiquities.

The collections of the museum amount to nearly 1,500 items: furniture, light fittings, glass art items and other things designed by Aino Aalto and Alvar Aalto. They also include paintings by Alvar Aalto and more than 30 models of his buildings. In addition to unique pieces of furniture, the collections include almost all models that were mass-produced, as well as a great number of prototypes.

The Alvar Aalto collection of drawings contain ca. 200,000 original drawings and documents related to his designs, beginning from 1917. The museum also has in Jyväskylä a photo archive, a newspaper archive, a reference library and the archive of Aalto’s correspondence.