A concrete cathedral in the midst of a downtrodden rental housing area. The AaltoSilo, located in Meri-Toppila in Oulu is an ambitious restoration project with the aim to turn the old, previously rotting, industrial silo (designed by Alvar Aalto) into a cultural centre. However, the restoration project is not a traditional one. For years now the AaltoSilo project has put community and cultural practices at the core of the restoration ideology, out of necessity and creativity.
Built in 1931 for industrial use as part of the Toppila cellulose factory, the silo was decommissioned in 1985 and was standing unused whilst most of the other factory buildings disappeared from around it. Mainly housing pigeons at the time, the AaltoSilo building was acquired in 2020 by Factum Foundation. Valentino Tignanelli, the current project manager, started working in AaltoSilo in 2021.
As I arrived at AaltoSiilo, I came across three landscaping students from OSAO (local vocational school) who were working at the building site, starting to develop the yard. As I have understood these students are just a small sample of the many students working at the project over the years?
The whole AaltoSiilo project has been a bartering system. We’ve been figuring out ways in which we can authentically collaborate with partners – particularly with educational institutions. These collaborations are what has actually allowed the building to be restored and now become legally open.
I don’t know any other Finnish project with these characteristics that works with all the layers of the higher education system. We have been working with the vocational school (OSAO), the University of Applied Sciences (OAMK), and the University of Oulu. We are collaborating with many branches of the city government or city-funded organizations.
We have been able to show the universities that we have an actual platform for work. Here the students do not only shadow the professionals. In many other work placements the students become some kind of assistants or have a very limited impact on the object of study but in the AaltoSiilo project we really need the work of the students to affect the building. We want them to work in parallel with the contractor and the architects. This has proven to be a very powerful driving force for the whole project. For instance, the windows and the floor of the main space have been restored by the students. They took a lot of pride in their work and did an excellent job.
Despite these collaborations, we need a stronger political will to see how this project could survive in the future. The age of heroism on our part needs to end. It cannot be a perpetuum of extra efforts. The project is currently built on interpersonal relationships, but that’s not sustainable or morally okay. This is the time for the community to step in and the decision-makers to actually make a promise, a real one.
As you mention, what is so impressive about the AaltoSiilo project is that there are so many parallel collaborations happening with education, but also cultural institutions. What you’re describing sounds like a shared practice of restoration. The hierarchy is not as strict as one could expect in such an ambitious project. It’s quite a creature.
Yes, the project is a unique creature. The collaborations started as a necessity and then they became embedded in the project itself. It was not the original wishes of the buyers of the building. We reached an awareness that this building cannot be treated as any traditional restoration process because all the basic elements are missing. There is no help from the state. There is no help from the community – the siilo was voted the ugliest building in Oulu in 2009! Meri-Toppila, where the siilo is located, is a neighbourhood with a bad reputation and with socio-economic problems. Finally, the siilo is a relatively minor work in the Aalto Studio portfolio. It is also a very complex building to renovate. It is a building that was not meant to have human beings inside it. The building is very complex structurally and is comprised of a lot of little engineering wonders. All of this created a timebomb that could only be diffused by occupying the building as much as the building let us.
One of the challenges you have taken on in the project is to always keep the space in use during the renovation and restoration. What does this mean in practice? What kind of use has the space had?
We started making cultural events. The first event, in 2022, was called Farewell to the Hoppers, with a focus on the huge metal hoppers that were going to be taken out. Back then we could let only ten people inside. So, we were filming artists inside the building and showing it to the outside. This was also one of the first pilot events of Oulu2026.
In 2023 we hosted a big international event with Spanish flamenco master Israel Galván in collaboration with the Oulu’s finest cultural export: Mieskuoro Huutajat. We streamed the event and it started to really bring attention to the project. We then became official partners of the New European Bauhaus in 2024. We won a mention by the European Commission with AaltoSiilo now being one of the five green lighthouse projects of the Commission. This allowed the Commission to bring more than 20 international experts from the Architect’s Council of Europe and the Living Spaces of the European Commission to make a report about the project. That was our first tool to show the city that this project is important for the European Union and there’s tremendous potential here.
Then in 2024 we hosted the Post-industrial Dance event which was a 10 hour programme connecting the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024 and Oulu 2026.
The big event of 2025 was a week-long workshop called Revitalize Meri-Toppila where we invited the community and international students from Latvia, London and Paris to use leftover elements of the building to create a pop-up park in an underused parking lot. We called it Aino Aallon puisto in honour of Aino Aalto, Alvar Aalto’s first wife and the driving force of the first period of the Aalto Studio
In this project, we like to talk about “restoring through culture” and not “restoring for culture”. The events show that while the building has an important historical value it is also important for the community. Through these events we were able to build up documentation that the building is safe, and it can be used. We were able to show the building inspectors that a flow of people can come in and use the building. So, we started to test the use of the building before it is finished, and not the other way around.
You mentioned “restoring through culture and not restoring for culture.” Does it mean that you do not wish to create a standardised, blank space where one can simply bring a project or a performance, but that you wish for the cultural activities to activate the Siilo more widely?
The Siilo has been in an in-between state, undergoing a gradual transformation. In the past two years, cultural activities have become an integral part of that process. Instead of merely occupying the building as a backdrop for artistic expression, these initiatives have contributed to its restoration and helped advance its long-term redevelopment goals.
All the events needed to be site-specific – until recently. Now the first floor is opened formally, and the building is a usable space, a habitable space. Now we have bathrooms, a little heating and solid floors – so it’s a safe gathering hall. The space was not like this when we did the first events. We really needed the artists to take into consideration the state of the building and incorporate it in their cultural expression. All of that then gave us the tools to redefine design guidelines and to carry on with the next decisions. The money is so scarce that all the design elements need to be surgically chosen. One of the clearest examples is how through the events the Factum Foundation managed to raise enough awareness around the Siilo, to then get enough money to facilitate the demolition of the hoppers and other inner structures.
You speak about the Siilo as an in-between space, and it came up in your answer now as well. You mention in an interview made by the City of Rovaniemi, that “if you really wish to build a community space, you need to let go of control”. I am curious about this statement. A lot of what you’ve said already is lingering on this, for instance; the allowance of cultural activities to shape the space. Could you expand a bit more on this need to let go of control?
You have to let go. The currency that you exchange with the community is ownership. When people use their skills and hours to restore a private building, you need to give them as big a degree of control of their actions as you can. If not, they are unpaid workers. It’s not “talkoot” (a Finnish word meaning a voluntary gathering of people to do a project for the common good). If somebody comes to the building site for three months laying bricks on the floor without getting paid, it doesn’t sound so good. You just do what you’re told, instead of having a creative mind as part of the work.
Losing control in this project means that we still have the architect and we still have the director of the project because we need to have those guidelines, but we also need to have as many porous borders as we can. As much as people can use this space, as much as they can say “I built that”, as much control we can lose, as much as we can distribute power, the more chances there are that something is going to survive.
You need to lose control to be able to actually build a relationship. And that’s what we try to do. We look for partnerships, not sponsorships. The reality is that there is not enough money that secures this kind of architecture to survive, if it’s not loved by the community.
Do you have an example of this kind of losing control?
One example is the brick floor of the Siilo, which was made with the help of students. Of course, with this project we have the question of Aalto heritage, and we need to respond to the Aalto foundation. The lead architect Charlotte Skene Catling’s plans are great, and they are really going to position the building not only as this community-led effort, but as a proper, iconic building by its own design. We came up with the idea of referencing the Muuratsalo Experimental House by Alvar and Elissa Aalto, and to see all the ways that brick could be used.
So, there were Charlotte’s design layout sketches with some guidelines for brick laying. But eventually the students got their patches of brick laying, and they came up with the patterns by themselves. They really tested different ways and explored the challenges that come with dialoguing with the original concrete. They incorporated how the floor is going to be maintained, and how it’s going to be dismantled when the time comes. They tested how to use the demolition bricks and leftover bricks. We’re talking about a circular economy here. We need to incorporate the leftovers in a structural, useful way.
The construction industry has had its share of impact from current turbulence in the world and market. Many companies are going extinct and projects are standing still. However, our contemporary city environment is full of new buildings and fresh, out of the box housing areas. Why is it of value to restore a ruin rather than demolish it and build something new?
I personally believe that the future of construction and architecture is renovation and restoration. The party is over. There’s no cash flow in the Western world. There’s no new money coming in. It’s not going to change for the next decade. So, this is what the future of architecture looks like. It’s really important that we have these laboratories – such as the AaltoSiilo – where we can actually train the circular construction skills of the future. They’re a necessity.
Often restorations can be seen as a nostalgic thing which are done to safeguard the past and upkeep a heritage. What you’re saying now is that it is first and foremost a practical need to restore and renovate. What kind of cultural and societal meaning can restoration carry?
The AaltoSiilo is a living heritage. The analogy of the Siilo as a cathedral is so important. It looks like a cathedral. Therefore, it needs to be built like a cathedral with efforts from all the layers of society. Bit by bit, but always in use. Always in use. And I think that’s what we are missing more widely in society.
The reason why these kinds of projects are important is that they give a sense of purpose to people. That’s very much lacking in these ages of transition and crisis. There’s not a clear feeling of why we’re doing the things we are doing. It’s across all the generations. Why should we care? When something is a little bigger than you and you feel that your effort matters – that’s a big commodity. It’s maybe one of the only commodities that are going to be in circulation for a long time.
Given this importance of being able to take part in something bigger than you and to impact it directly – do you think that the AaltoSiilo project will ever be finished? Or would you rather wish for it to always stay somehow as an in-between space?
If this project had happened in the 90’s, it would have gone completely in a different way. With all the money from the European Union and other views on what heritage was supposed to look like. So, the Siilo now is a product of its time, the same way it was when it was built in the extractivist economy of the 1930’s. Back then there was not even a thought about these kinds of things that we are talking about now. The Siilo was just a building. A beautiful building, 100% designed by Aalto, one of the greatest architectural minds of the Western world.
I think in this kind of project you have to talk about the expansion of the degree of use. Thinking about completion undermines the project and creates unrealistic outcomes. Talking about completion sends us back to this kind of bygone era.
Finally, I would like to ask you about the area of Meri-Toppila where the AaltoSiilo is located. As part of your Master studies in Architecture at the University of Oulu you had a focus on this housing area. Obviously, a building is never simply floating in thin air. It has a context and a place. What first made you interested in Meri-Toppila, and how is it to make this project here?
I arrived in Oulu during Corona. There were not a lot of things to do. I had never seen an Alvar Aalto building. So, I picked up a bike, and I came to see the Siilo. I didn’t know at that time that it was part of an industrial complex or that the whole neighbourhood was a former factory. At the beginning I imagined that the Siilo is a monolith in the middle of a field. But when I arrived in Meri-Toppila I saw these post-industrial landscapes with alleys and red brick buildings.
Meri-Toppila proved to be a very interesting place. I learned that when the factory was decommissioned, the city acquired it and had these plans to make a middle-class neighbourhood with connection to the sea. Then the big recession came in the early 90’s and everything was left half-waste, including the Siilo. The city’s decision at that time was to create all these rental units that would be a place to put the undesirable elements of society like people coming out of jails, refugees, substance users and so on. And it was deliberate. That’s why there’s still not a master plan for Meri-Toppila. Meri-Toppila has had a very bad reputation, it is often called “Veri-Toppila” (Veri is the Finnish word for blood). There is general apathy from the decision makers around this area. It is a blind spot in urban planning.
We at the AaltoSiilo have been basically the sole providers of cultural activities for thousands of people here. Not that all of the people at our events come from Meri-Toppila. That’s also one of the struggles. You cannot talk about community in a traditional sense because of these rental units. They create a very transient population that only lives here for a year, two years. They don’t own the buildings. Many are passing by and they don’t particularly care about the built environment.
How about when you have open workshops, are there locals coming in? How do the locals feel about the project? Have you received any feedback?
They feel increasingly better. One big game changer was three years ago when the French Le Plus Petit Cirque du Monde with Flow Productions came and started the project Climbing over Oulu. The French company is very experienced in community approaches. They know how to use the body in a good way. That project started to change the mood a little bit. More people from the neighbourhood noticed us and started to come.
When we built the Aino Aallon Puisto park area in 2015 the locals really used the park as a place to gather. Hopefully now with the new landscaping students from OSAO we can even open another plot of land for the community to use.
The other day one of the local people – clearly in a substance abuse situation – was wandering around with a piece of wood. He saw me, threw the wood to the ground and said, “this is for the terrace”. It’s a small gesture but it said a lot.
I think many people in the area thought it’s an impossible project and that the Siilo is obviously going to be demolished. There is still some of that sense of impossibility in the air. The heroism we have had is a good fuel for ambition for a while. But then there comes a moment when the impossibility needs to become possible. And it needs to be addressed that what we are doing right now with these resources is hard. Also others, like key city departments, need to contribute – instead of simply being bystanders and observers.
Silja Tuovinen met Valentino at AaltoSiilo. All photos by Silja.