Sights in the area

Artist Ilona Auramaa’s atelier is located in the Alvar Aalto´s Terassitalo. In addition to colourful paintings, she also sells unique earrings, ceramics, and cards. She welcomes visitors to her atelier to shop or simply to spend a moment relaxing among the art.

Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino were influential in Kauttua in Eura between 1937–1946. Aalto’s first task in Kauttua was to draw a general plan for the area. The plan covered an industrial area and the surrounding residential areas – the area that is today known as the Ironworks.  Aalto designed the roads and buildings to mimic natural shapes. The plan included stepped buildings, blocks of flats, and single-storey single-family homes. Southern Satakunta Travel Guides (Alasatakunnan oppaat ry) organise tours of the Terassitalo exhibition space and other sites in the Ironworks area

City nomad route Kauttua’s story as an industrial area spans more than three centuries, and Kauttua has been settled for much longer. There were already farmers’ mills at the Kauttua rapids before Lorenz Creutz founded the ironworks in 1689. Kauttua’s current building stock reflects the 19th and 20th centuries, but it is only within the last century that the architects were also recorded. After Ahlström arrived in the area and iron was swapped for paper in the early 20th century, trained architects were used to design buildings alongside the ironworks’ own master buildings.

The interior of Terassitalo is used as a space for changing exhibitions. Terassitalo is one of Aalto’s most significant works. Aalto was commissioned to design zoning and complementary construction in the Kauttua Ironworks area. The first building in the area to be completed was the “stairless block of flats” known as Terassitalo in 1938. Southern Satakunta Travel Guides (Alasatakunnan oppaat ry) organise tours of the exhibition space and other sites in the Ironworks area. Tel. +358 (0)50 377 5245 / Kaisa Repo.

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The Visit Alvar Aalto online service has been produced to showcase the Aalto architectural sites along the Alvar Aalto Route, with different language versions, sites and tours added along the way. The Route has been designed and produced with Alvar Aalto Cities and local tourism operators.

The Visitor Centre is a meeting place for all residents and tourists in Kauttua. The exhibition presents the history of Kauttua from the birth of the village to the present day. The main focus of the exhibition is in the industrial history, nature and community of Ruukinpuisto from 1689 to the present. Kauttua has preserved the unique atmosphere of a small village and still has just under 3000 permanent residents. As in many old villages, Kauttua has several people, families and legends that are significant to the community and have been brought to the fore in the exhibition.

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There is plenty to see at the Ironworks. The Ironworks are part of the Alvar Aalto tourist route.

Family celebrations and inspiring meetings. Café, lunch, and catering restaurant. A sauna, tub and river swimming all year round. Sauna treatments, bicycles for hire, and BungyPump walking poles.

The Jokisauna designed by Aino and Alvar Aalto is Finland’s only sauna and laundry building designed by Aalto that is available for public use, and is part of the idyllic cultural landscape, located on the bank of Eurajoki river. Sense the unique atmosphere of the factory sauna at the sauna by the river.

The only hill fortress in Eura and all of Satakunta was built more than 1000 years ago in a location that ensured a vantage point over important travel routes, the Eura river and Lake Pyhäjärvi. The ancient fortress’ 63-metre-long stone fortifications are still visible to this day.

Excavations of the hill summit have discovered part of a spindle, a fragment of a seax, forges for clay vessels, iron slag, and a bottom millstone. The culture layer was rather thin, so Linnavuori was probably not permanently settled and instead may have been used as a place of escape when threatened by an enemy.