In the early 1930s, Finland needed a hospital for tuberculosis, and the architect Alvar Aalto won the competition to design it. The Paimio Sanatorium, finished in 1933, is one of the landmarks of modern architecture, a white, functionalist building set among pines on a ridge, in which every detail was designed to help the patient recover. Rooms faced south to catch the sun, windows were large, floors were coloured to calm the eye, and basins were shaped to make noise as little as possible so that the person in the next bed would not be disturbed. Aalto thought of the building as a medical instrument.
He also designed the furniture, and the Paimio chair, a lounge chair of bent birch plywood, was made for patients, whose breathing, it was thought, would be helped by the angle of the seat. It became a classic of twentieth-century design and is still produced. The sanatorium stopped treating tuberculosis when drugs made it curable, and now serves as a hospital, but parts of it are open for tours. A visit shows the stairwell with its yellow floor, the long sunbathing terraces and the dining room, and the whole building feels strikingly fresh for its age.
The ride goes on to Villa Mairea, another Aalto building, a private house in Noormarkku built a few years later, with a mix of wood, stone and white plaster that points toward his later style. The road from Paimio runs through southwestern Finland, a landscape of fields, spruce forest and lakes, with red wooden farmhouses and very little traffic. Surfaces are smooth, speed limits are strictly enforced, and elk and deer are a real hazard, particularly at dusk and dawn. In high summer, the light lasts almost all night, and in winter, you should not be on a bike at all.
Paimio has just over ten thousand people, with fuel and supermarkets, and the larger city of Turku lies about thirty kilometres to the south-west, with a medieval castle and a cathedral. Local food includes salmon soup, rye bread and cinnamon buns, and a coffee break is a national institution, called kahvitauko. The best months are June to August, with warm days and long evenings, and September has crisp, clear air. Check the rules for tyres in winter, and carry a warm layer even in summer, because the weather can turn cool.