Viljo Gabriel Rewell was born on 25 January 1910 in Vaasa. Rewell studied architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto University) and received his diploma of architecture in 1937. His breakthrough work was the functionalist Lasipalatsi commercial building (Glass Palace) in the centre of Helsinki, designed together with fellow students Heimo Riihimäki and Niilo Kokko and completed in 1936. He was one of the leading Modernist architects in Finland and some of his works are considered as the classics of Finnish Modernism. At the beginning of his international career in 1961, he changed his surname from Rewell to Revell. Viljo Revell died suddenly at the age of 54 on 8 November 1964, during the construction of Toronto City Hall, one of his main works.