Experiencing Authenticity at Alvar Aalto’s Experimental House

Abstract

Experiences of authenticity are studied at Alvar Aalto’s Experimental House – today a modern house museum – which has gone through renovations and changes. Visitors were interviewed to find out how they feel about the authenticity of the place, if the changes affect their experience of authenticity, and if they share the same opinions. A review of the literature on the concept of authenticity is carried out and its implications for museum contexts is considered, and then the research questions are answered by analysing 30 interviews of visitors to the Experimental House.