The building heritage section works in close cooperation with the Finnish National Board of Antiquities.

The museum, designed by Alvar Aalto and completed in 1973, is located on a slope which lies next to Lake Jyväsjärvi.

The vertical bands of baton-shaped, glazed tiles divide up the rampart-like elevations to form a relief that gives a strong effect of depth when the surface is washed with light.

The windows of Café Alvar have a view to a series of open-air pools, with water trickling from one to another along the route of what was once a natural stream.

The wave-like surface of the back wall contains a trace of the pavilion that Aalto designed for the 1939 New York World's Fair.

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 house is enclosed by a provisional courtyard space which, when looking outward, frames the landscape within its entrance.

This partial enclosure mediates the space, creating a distinction between interior and exterior, open and closed form.

[9] Aalto described this group of buildings as a combination of an architect's studio and an experimental centre, in which one could also carry out experiments that are not yet sufficiently well developed to be tried out in practice and where the proximity of nature may offer inspiration for both form and structure.