Simo Paavilainen

Paavilainen studied architecture at Helsinki University of Technology, qualifying as an architect in 1975.

While part of the reasons for their style of architecture is certainly derived from following international trends, this also took on a local concern: in attempting to gain academic respectability, the Postmodern theorists, such as Charles Jencks, Michael Graves and Charles Willard Moore, turned their attention to earlier proto-Postmodernism, one of the prime examples being the architecture in the Nordic countries during the 1920s, Nordic Classicism, and in particular the Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund.

Scholars in the Nordic countries became well aware of the international attention, and the architecture of that period, which had been forgotten in the onslaught of Modernism, was then 'rediscovered', as evident in various books and exhibitions.

Simo Paavilainen emerged as one of the key academics in the field; but his interest then spilled over into his own architectural production.

In more recent years, however, his architecture has moved back towards more traditional Modernism, though again, in the spirit of the times.