Urheilu: It's not the winning that counts, it's beating Sweden...

shadow runner

Finns tend to love their sport - and not just wife-carrying, ski-jumping, and mölkky world championships either. Motorsport aside (which seems to produce an inordinate number of Finnish world champion rally and F1 drivers - that may have something to do with the empty gravel roads, and the 'survival of the fittest' rules for motorway driving here, but more on that another time) the main yardstick for success here seems to be 'did we do better than Sweden?', be it at ice hockey (most importantly) or even athletics at a pinch.

Don't bother to mention that UK got 19 olympic golds to Finland's 1 (shooting), they will only point out our 60+ million population against their 5 million; and that Sweden (pop. 9m) got none... actually maybe there should be some sort of handicapping system by size of population in the future... or at least add wife-carrying and mölkky as olympic sports.

So this Friday and Saturday was the annual Suomi / Ruotsi (Finland / Sweden) athletics match, and we were lucky enough to get free tickets for the Olympic stadium on Saturday (thanks Bore's boss!) to watch with 30,000 others various fit young things in blue and white try to run, jump and throw better than those in yellow and blue. Who won? Let's call it a draw...

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The evening also reminded me of trips to Crystal Palace athletics with my Dad & family in the 90's and the Grand Prix Finals in 2006; and with Sweden’s Carolina Klüft and Finland’s Sari Keskitalo reminding me of ex-speed skater Irina Privalova winning 100m & 400m, coming 2nd in 200m and competing in weak 4x100 & 4x400 teams for the winning rest-of-Europe team in '94 World Cup... I'm sure Dad would have loved to have seen this one too, especially with Helsinki's much more intimate layout, with the stands much closer the track; he always loved athletics having gone to White City as a youngster, and Rome olympics in 1960, and I have vivid memories of a summer holiday in Devon or Cornwall spent listening alternately to olympics results and Dire Straits on the car stereo.  I wish I could be going with him to London 2012, but thats not to be; so for his memory, as well as some vestige of British pride, I hope Boris & co doesn't make too much of a hash of it.

Wool gathering

Not quite wool: Balls of string at a market

Came across this article in the weekly edition of the Gruniad.  Obviously I haven't been here long enough to form more than a superficial opinion, but although it seems to ring true with what I have read, heard and experienced so far, but it also reinforces a lot of the 'Scandinavian' stereotypes that are around in the UK. Read the comments and you will see what I mean. As ever, any generalisation can be countered by a specific example or experience to the contrary - but our friends A&J in Germany, who have just had a bouncing baby boy, didn't feel the need to come rushing back before the birth... but that just opens up a whole other debate on another country.

Talking about babies, my brother (the middle one - let's call him Keski) has just found out that he (well his partner to be accurate) is expecting... somewhat to his and everyone's surprise. I'm not sure who had him in the sweepstake as to who would make our Mum a granny first, but he would have been the outsider not so long ago!  This rounds out a whole bunch of changes between us siblings -  youngest brother (let's call him Godzilla) finding a new GF;  Lil' Sis moving in with Godzilla (maybe we should call her Gosberry now?); Keski's news... anyone would think they were trying to compete with us for attention!  

Anyway at some point I will have to stop this displacement activity, do some work on my portfolio, and get my books together for language course starting Monday...

August's Architecture Corner

Open House Helsinki is coming up on 2nd October and is part of the larger Helsinki Design Week (which has an equally cool logo). We'll be trying to take in some of the buildings on the list then, and no doubt, making a post or two, but as London's very own Open House is coming up on 20 & 21 September we'd like to hear what buildings you lot in London are planning to see - just add a comment here.

In the meantime we have been making our own visits, to Sibeliustalo Concert Hall, Lahti (see separate posts below) and also taking advantage of the tours organised by MFA (Museum of Finnish Architecture or Suomen Rakennustaiteen Museo in Helsinki - wonder why it's acronym isn't SRM? but I digress...) to accompany it's exhibition (and book) of "25 designs selected by a jury of experts ... presented in the third biennial of current Finnish architecture"; and the freebie tours on Artists Night to get inside the Finlandia concert hall.

I also found this blog by a Scottish Architect here in Finland since 2004 (see links on side bar) - so it's not just me then!

Sibeliustalo

Stalls from the gods

Back in July we visited the Sibelius Concert Hall (completed 2000, Architectural Design: Arkkitehtityöhuone Artto Palo Rossi Tikka Oy / Hannu Tikka ja Kimmo Lintulain) in Lahti, while on our way to Kesälahti mökki. For those who haven't heard of Jean Sibelius he occupies a position in Finnish music composition in much the same way as Alvar Aalto overshadows architecture.  The building is really a composition of four parts (see the plans and more here ) with the refurbished carpentry factory being linked by the aptly named 'forest hall' foyer to the main auditorium 'box' and separate conference wing. The auditorium is an Artec acoustic design (like Birmingham), seemingly a timber box in a glass box, with large reverberation voids wrapping the intmate, hall.  Interestingly you actually walk through the voids to get into the auditorium.  Having worked on a few theatre/performance projects ourselves, it was particularly interesting to get a tour around the building and see (and hear) the amazing quality achieved here, particularly 10 years after the original competition was held.

As well as the lake and boats, you can also see the new and attractive Piano cafe through the massive glazing of the 'forest hall' - which we of course also had to try out too. Along with the new housing going up, the Sibelius Hall and Piano cafe are making this previously quiet corner of Lahti increasingly attractive and lively - which was part of the original reason for the project. As with so many projects like this it all hinged on politics, with the project being approved by just one vote by the city council; but now Lahti has a world class concert hall to honor a world class composer.

WeeGee

WeeGee Cafe terrace

WeeGee-talo (WG House) in Tapiola, Espoo is a fantastic set of art galleries and museums, brought together in the equally fantastic converted former Welin & Göös printing works. The original structure is for me the star of the show - in the main wing each of eight hollow concrete pylons support an independent 27 x 27 metre square of roof, like giant parasols over huge concrete table, and give huge areas of column free space on the upper floor.

Originally designed by Professor Aarno Ruusuvuori, the printing works was completed in the 1960s, and was heavily influenced by the 'serial approach, duplication and geometry typical of Constructivism'. As well as the structure, such innovations such as a ventilated double skinned, double glazed facade (with ingenious sliding inner skin to give access), and the glass washrooms (cue joke on glass ceilings...) led to the building being 'protected' (in effect listed) when production stopped in 1990. The €24m conversion, completed 2006, was carried out by Airas Architects, and respects the original features whilst integrating the huge volume of services, and varying needs of the 5 museums, art gallery and art school. 

We were lucky enough to be shown around by the project architect Henna Helander as part of the MFA 06/07 series of tours, and got to see the EMMA (Espoo Museum of Modern Art) staff and conservation areas; the huge basement plant room (and stand in the main air duct); and find out why they went to the effort of excavating the basement for the main cloakroom area when there is nothing on that level (answer: because the black box auditorium that should have been there was omitted during the project).

Piirakkaa

P. Jarlan Rivo-Riittakin (kuvassa P. Jarlan piirtämänä Taiteiden Yönä) olisi ollut  tyytyväinen tähän piirakkaan... 

Murotaikinan aineksina käytin: 

150g voita, 

1 munan, 

3dl vehnäjauhoja,

1tl leivinjauhetta ja 

1.5 dl sokeria 

ja päälle

10 omenaa tädin puutarhasta + kanelia ja sokeria...

Onneksi Rivo-Riitta ei tuprutellut röökiä vieressä...

Ja lopputulos oli tämä (hieman palaneena :)):

P.S. Boren mielestä piiras oli omenaisen maukasta.

Mölkky

Rustic Mölkky 

[image from Wikimedia commons]

Drop in at just about any Finnish mökki over the summer and you are more than likely to interrupt one or more of the following activities: the grilling of makara, sauna, and mölkky.

According to Wikipedia, Mölkky was invented in Finland in 1996, and has been very successful here. Although described on American websites as a 'Finnish tossing game', it's certainly a good way to while away the long summer days in a more social way and can be played (and even benefits) from the uneven and varied terrain you find in the average yard. Just be careful not to lose your mölkky (the throwing 'stick') in the forest or lake...

The world championships are held in Lahti each year, this year's being the 11th.  

These days you can even buy mini, indoor versions for the long, dark days of winter (but mind the glasswear!), and of course to add to the burgeoning list of Suomi souvenir gifts to inflict on your friends and family...  happy birthday Robert!

A taste of home

Who ate all the piirakat?

Not that I'm getting any twinges of homesickness you understand, but two tastes of home came recently.  For lunch today I cooked a home-made Steak & Kidney pie (as you can't get anything like this here) using BBC Good Food website recipe; whilst it is a bit more rustic looking that it might be, I didn't let a lack of rolling pin, pie dish or scales get in the way of tasty British stodge. Thumbs up from the Finns too.  The other taste of home? Well that came courtesy of Ruotsi (Sweden) in the shape of a visit to Ikea the other day; we could have been in Edmonton just as easily.  

As a postscript to that, we went to our local big blue and yellow box in Vantaa with Konna's isä (dad) who had unbelievably never been before! I mean is there even a house left in UK not at least half furnished from there? Maybe it is just deep seated resistance to Swedish cultural imperialism...

From Arts Night to Dark Knight

even the statues get into the spirit of Taiteiden Yö

You would think that with all this time on our hands there would be lots of time for writing blog posts, but there seems to be so much going on at the moment I hardly know where to start.  I haven't written about Sibelious concert hall, Koli hiking or some incidents at Kesälahti; or our tour around WeeGee centre in Espoo; and already we are going off again to Kotka next week. Obviously getting distracted by Facebook has nothing to do with it.

Last night in Helsinki was Artist's Night (or Art Night or Night of Arts: Taiteiden Yö in Finnish anyway), basically a bunch of free, loosely 'arts' related events in the city. This ranged from a concert for 30,000 in Senate Square, free entry to museums and galleries, book signings and poetry readings, supposedly themed around 1968. And (for some) an excuse for a Friday night piss up. We took in the Anton Corbijn photography exhibition at the Taidemuseo Tennispalatsi (Tennis Palace Art Gallery) - probably best know for his work with musicans such as U2 and Depeche Mode, and says himself that he started photography as a way into the music world to meet his heroes back in the 70's.  We then headed over to the Finlandia concert hall, taking a peek at the huge hole in the ground that will be the new Musiikitalo (music house) on the way past. This is coincidently another famous product of the 70's, for a free (although shortened) backstage tour around Alvar Aalto's masterpiece (without any of the Carrera marble cladding dropping off and hitting anyone). This is in effect a listed building, which causes some problems for the management dealing with imperfect acoustics (the ceiling of the main concert hall being replaced, leaking roofs and the aforementioned marble cladding (replaced a few years ago) as well as the entrance being moved from the original front some years ago - which is due to be rectified in the next few years. In fact this will all sound eerily familiar to those familiar with the travails and renovation of the Royal Festival Hall (south bank centre) in London.

Finlandia talo

After our daily architecture fix, and a quick lohikeito (salmon soup) on the terrace, we walked through the busy streets, glimpsing various musicians, performers, dancers (in shop windows) to the Akateeminen Kirjakauppa (Academic Bookshop) - part of the Stockmanns department store, reputedly Europe's largest (in terms of number of titles at least, with over 450000) and, as it happens, another white marble Aalto design, with it's atrium and inverted, crystalline, roof light.  Here were various book signings, readings, and 15% discount on paperbacks until midnight. So while Bore & Pikka had Fingerpori books signed I picked up Bad Monkeys (Matrix meets Silence of the Lambs according to the blurb); and considering a paperback might cost €14 (about £11) any discount is well worth it!

Skirting the packed Senate Square we ended the night with a beer/cider by the harbour.

Back while we were in Tennispalatsi (and I was surfing facebook on the free wireless connection there) we picked up tickets for Dark Knight, so we'll find out tonight if Heath Ledger's final performance is as good as everyone says.

Food for thought

Orava syö sieni

I had been thinking about how to make this next post a more interesting and intellectually stimulating piece, maybe drawing on my recent travels in Finnish Karelia (partially annexed by Russia during WWII),and the Russia/Georgia conflict; or perhaps the Beijing Olympics and the comparative performances of Finland and Great Britain. You know something befitting for a Guardian (International Edition) reader. Timely and pertinent. You know the sort of thing.

But instead here is a picture (and video) of a squirrel eating a mushroom outside our kitchen window... so more ITN "and finally" than Newsnight.  Good night.

Sämpylä

Sämpylä

Well not quite made the next day (see New Experiences, Old Ways), but baked for breakfast a few days later:

Sämpylä

here is the bread
made from the flour
ground by hand
at Sysmä's fair
with Taiska's dad

keeps tradition alive

[edited 18/8/08]

Welcome back...

A Tent With a View, or, Where To Next?

We arrived back last night, and have started uploading 493 photos and 19 video clips (yes I foolishly bought a bigger memory card) while the washing machine rumbles away in the background, and the YLE olympic commentators witter away in suomea.

Have stayed in four-star hotel, bunked in aitta's, tent in campsite and backwoods, in mökki with no electricity or running water, and mökki with dishwasher, flat screen TV and two saunas; eaten elk, karelia pies, karelia egg sauce, karelia stew, wild berries, pulla and drank kahvi, kotiolut (home beer), australian shiraz and lake water (boiled of course) ;  seen lots of puu (trees), jarvi (lakes), and even mäki (hills); traveled by car, coach, ferry, train, minibus, taxi and foot; and walked, hiked, climbed, rowed, swam, sailed, slept and been bitten by a hundred hyttynen (mosquitoes) all the while.

Will eventually make a few posts on some of the highlights, and put up a few of the photos - when I can summon up the energy.

Oh and Konna had another name day...

[edited 18/08/08]