"The National Pensions Institute, by Aalto (competition 1948; completed 1956), occupies a restricted triangular site in the northern part of the city. In it Aalto reintroduced red brick for modern Finnish town architecture. The brick buildings, copper-trimmed, step up the slope and enclose a raised courtyard. The canteen... exemplifies Aalto's decorative inventiveness; note the metal ceiling panels containing heating units and the walls lined with rounded ceramic tiles—invented by Aalto for this occasion and used by him in several buildings subsequently."

— J.M. Richards. 800 Years of Finnish Architecture. Vancouver: David and Charles, 1978. p156-7.