Seinäjoki: the city designed by Alvar Aalto

In the rural Ostrobothnia region of Finland, Seinäjoki holds an entire civic center designed by the celebrated Finnish architect Alvar Aalto.

The downtown, entirely designed by architect Alvar Aalto, is comfortably walkable in a few hours.

The Civic Center of Seinäjoki, an elegant complex of white buildings designed by Alvar Aalto in the nineteen-sixties, comprises town hall, library, theater, and church in one perfectly harmonious ensemble.

A few minutes away, the Church of the Lake District Cross, with its soaring and imposing bell tower, remains among the most celebrated of Aalto's religious architectural works.

Proceeding to the center, one visits the Museum of Southern Ostrobothnia, which chronicles the agricultural and cultural history of the surrounding region.

As evening approaches, the city center district animates restaurants frequented by residents of this lively university city.

Alvar Aalto designed the civic centre of Seinäjoki over more than an entire decade, from the nineteen-sixties until his own death in 1976, making it one of his most complete and coherent urbanistic projects in all of Finland.

Seinäjoki, grown rather rapidly in the post-war period from a small agricultural village to a vibrant regional city, remains today an important commercial and cultural centre of southern Ostrobothnia in Finland.