This year's Architecture & Design Film Festival, beginning on the 19th, is filled with goodies and I urge you to get a series pass. A film about Alvar Aalto is eye opening. First for the insiders view of many of the 200 projects he did internationally, but secondly for the look at the man and his wives (there were two) who were instrumental to his practice.

In a trip I took to Finland some years ago, I was able to see a number of the Helsinki projects--the grand Finlandia Hall with its late period white aesthetic, the National Pension Institution with its doorless elevators and step down library, his cozy home, the Modern Library and then outside the Paimio Sanitorium which some consider his finest work.

But I had not seen most of the projects further north, and in Germany and especially one house for a French art collector the Maison Carre which looks sublime and his many churches, schools and municipal buildings, MIT and a room at the UN--all this and more is on offer in this very warm and wonderful film.

Of course his furniture, which was once the most successful modern line sold around the world is still coveted for its clean lines and its wood aesthetic. The hanging lamps are especially pleasing, all handcrafted.

I was not aware that towards the end of his life, Aalto was reviled in Finland for his capitalist projects, his wartime flirtation with Germany, and among friends, his alcoholism. Aalto, whose charm, erotic approach to life and work, bonhomie, and huge success attracting important clients (Laurence Rockefeller a steadfast patron) was a falling down drunk at times. Nonetheless, his body of work is consistently superior.