Open (House) Helsinki 2011

Apart from the fact that they can't decide if the event has the word 'house' in it or not, and there are also places in Espoo and Vantaa (well I suppose that is 'greater' Helsinki ) as you might guess this week was this year's opportunity to get into public and private buildings that you often can't. And ships.

Now we have a proper internet connection at last, I can finally upload a decent number of photographs with out waiting for Godot. Be afraid...


(Click on Picasa album links below for more pictures)

Open House Helsinki - saunalahden lastentalo

Open House Helsinki - Urho ja Sisu

Open House - Musikkitalo, WG Lofts, Stora Enso

Open House - Pyhän Laurin kappeli

Eduskunta

Luckily Finland has a substantial paper industry: Winter 2010

A couple of weeks ago we did one of those touristy things you never seem to do when living in you home country/city.  In this case visiting Suomen eduskuntatalo - Finland's parliament building.

Sausage houses, Thunderbirds and Ego

Toronto City Hall via Erindesignr/Flkr

I thought it was worth putting a few more words about Viljo Revell (with two L's please note Ms. Kilpikonna) as his work still has a big impact on Helsinki at least, and you can't help thinking he would have gone on to do a lot more if he hadn't have died at only 54, before his best know work, the Thunderbirds style (optimist-futurist-expressionist-modernist) Toronto City Hall, was completed in 1966. Whether it would have been popular is a different question. The 'City-Center' Makkaratalo ('sausage house') is pretty much universally reviled (I also struggle to find much positive to say, except the concrete brute with car ramps trumping pedestrian access is 'of it's time'. On the other hand 'Lasipalatsi' the 1935 'Crystal palace' is certainly still a gem of white functionalism.

Anyway how many internationally successful architects can you think of who said anything like 'It was was teamwork you see' when asked how they designed a competition winning scheme? No - I thought not.

Teamwork

Architect Viljo Revel's exhibition 'It was team work, you see' at Didrichsen Art Museum in Helsinki exhibits architect's life work in a proper setting, in a building designed by him. Worth a visit if you are nearby before mid May 2010...

Our visit was a quick one on Easter Monday morning, before cooking a lamb feast with a few Yorkshire puddings... I know I know - not a usual combination - but because of a great demand the chef had to live up to his audience. I guess the word 'his' gave up the BIG secret (?) who cooks the fantastic feasts in this house :)

Architecture Corner

A few things to cover this time out, and a bit long so I'll split into 3 posts below this one:

• Betonipäivää: Dipoli; Hämeenlinän arkisto; marte.marte
• Europan 10, in which we don't win
• Uusi seikkailu, or what have I been doing instead of writing blogs?

Betonipäivää

Dipoli - on a cold snowy day...

So after the 'wood day' in Lahti's timber-y Sibelius Hall last year we now had 'concrete day' last Thursday in the appropriately concrete-y Dipoli, on the TKK/Aalto university Oteniemi campus, designed by the Pietilä's in early-mid 60's. Dipoli, with it's crystalline, acute cornered, concrete base, and undulating exposed concrete roof shows off their still contemporary looking organo-modern style... although my eye was drawn to the awkward gap between walls and roof filled internally with fanned timber boards.

Hämeenlinnan Maakunta Arkisto via

We arrived in time for a classic example of how not to use powerpoint (put up the full rules of a competition, then read it all out. All. Ten. Slides. Zzzzzz). This was before the annual Betoni magazine award was made to the design and construction team for Hämeenlinnan Maakunta Arkisto (Provincial Archive) - with Heikkinen-Komonen as architects. The historic graphics printed on the concrete archive 'box' are no doubt what won it this prize, but it is a admirably clean and clear expression of the brief - public functions in a fully glazed ground floor, with concrete ark floating above, and brown, copper-clad administration box behind separated with a light filled circulation slot.

On a side note - why do all Finnish architects have English websites?

Haus Marte via

Anyway, we were really there for the main lecture, from Austrian architect's Marte.Marte, in which a German speaker was to talk in English to a room of (mainly) Finns. However despite that minor handicap a good presentation with beautiful graphics and photographs followed (although since they have published a glossy monograph recently you would expect so). Suiting the occasion Stefan Marte concentrated on their minimalist concrete 'shells' with frameless glazed openings - often based on pure square plans and over looking fabulous Rhine valley landscapes. But rammed earth, aluminium, corten steel and birch plywood all got a look in. Have a browse through their rather nice minimalist website (in German) - but notice you'll need to use the little arrow/triangle on the right of the image to cycle through the pictures (something that took me ages to figure out) - maybe a case of too minimal?

During the makkara pasta buffet afterwards, (and influenced by pari lasia viiniä), Konna revealed to us the last time she had been to Dipoli... but I'll let her tell that story another time.

Dipoli also has a link with Europan 10, or at least our Tampere site, as this is where Reima and Reili Pietilä produced many of their major works; and were we saw the exhibition of their work - my first introduction to these important Finnish architects.

Europan

JM100: © MDD/JSK 2009 via Arkkitehdas

The author has created [a] somewhat general lay-out for the site. Despite of some positive goals the overall atmosphere and the details of the solution seem to look backwards rather that seek new solutions. There are some positive rhythmic ingredients in the repetition of the houses.

So, no, we didn't win.

If you remember way back to this post a year ago, you'll know that we were taking part in theEuropan 10 'young designers' (i.e. under-40's) competition with a proposal for the Tampere, Vuores site. That was submitted way back in July, and results were finally published this month (a day shy of a whole year since the official launch).

The winners (which you can see here - under Tulokset/Palkitutin or Eng/Results/Best Projects, and also the full jury report (in English) for both Finnish sites) were definitely a cut above our entry, so congratulations to them. We knew when we submitted that we hadn't cracked the important corner of the site, and we were never completely happy with the back edge... in fact only the terrace of houses mentioned we felt completely satisfied with. Maybe 'backward looking' terraced (row) housing is an British cultural trait coming out? More controversially, we think the winning entry (Scion) 'broke' the master plan slightly (although we may be misunderstanding the drawings), which we understood to be no-go (and had a big struggle with)... but I've heard it before - the trick is knowing which part of the brief to break to make the best competition entry.

You can see our full entry here (which gives away the next part of the post so read that first), and although damned with faint praise from the jury, it was at least categorized in the 'middle class' entries rather than the lower class. And I learnt a lot about Finnish housing, urban planning and drawing conventions in the process - which was really the main point of the exercise; that and it being my last chance to take part, as now that even as an Architect, I am no longer 'young'.

Uusi seikkailu

© 2010 Arkkitehdas

If you looked at the link in previous post about Europan, or received one of our cards, you'll already know what this is about.

A combination of being unemployed (with few jobs around), not qualifying for benefits, and being asked to design some friends house extension has conspired to encourage me to become an yrittäjä ('entrepreneur' - a horrible term which makes me think of Alan Sugar) and register a toiminimi (trade name, sole trader, business) for an arkkitehti- suunitellatoimisto (architect and design studio) which has thrown me into the world of business plans, starttiraha (startup grants), YEL (self employed social insurance - like NI in UK), vastuuvakuutus (indemnity insurance), contracts, professional competence registers,kirjanpitominen (book keeping), ALV (VAT), domain hosting and more. Which is fun enough in English let alone Finnish. Luckily I have some help in deciphering it all... (kiitos kulta Konnalle).

More fun was choosing a name and designing the logo, graphics and website, which of course are the most essential parts of the whole enterprise. (What do you mean getting clients and making a profit?)

If you want to know why Arkkitehdas - have a look at the link.

I also thought of a few others, most of which either are too similar to existing names, or Konna just gave me one of those looks and I quickly discarded:

• Luovia (to tack or zig-zag - but already an IT company or something)
• Navetta (barn, which is a bit agricultural when you live in Helsinki)
• Vintti/Ullako (attic, hmm, like atelier except like suomeksi)
• ArKäDa (too similar to Arkkada)
• dk studio (er, Calvin Kline?)
• jkmd (which is a bit too close to JKMM)
• m.ARK (which is just sad)
• JaM (we could send out free jars of jam with our name on them... NEXT!)

The 'grand plan' is to hassle remind all those people who've said - 'one day we'll get you guy's to design our house'; to do some of the Finnish open design competitions (hopefully better than Europan); to try to get some sub-contracting work with other architects here and perhaps UK. And maybe do a little graphic design work on the side, based on the response to our christmas cards and launch cards... my second commission (of a huge total of two) is to design some invites...

Anyway, back to the realities of small business. What with investment in a new computer, YEL, PII and accountant's fees for the year I've already spent the income from my first commissions before I've even started...

Anybody need something architecting?

How to use a camera in mittens...

From Senaatintori lightshow

As you know I don't like to go on about the weather and length/shortness of days in Finland too much, particularly the cold, snow and darkness...* (kö).

Erm, anyway here are some pictures of the lightshow and projections Senaatintorilla tiistaina. It was about minus 17°C with a biting wind and pitch dark (being after 4pm) so I played an interesting game of 'can-I-hold-my-camera-still-enough-without-a-tripod-and-operate-it-with-gloves-and-woolly-mittens' while Konna hopped up and down (cold, not the other). Thank goodness for the 3200 ISO setting is all I can say (although actually pushing the little button and turning the selector with a digit encased in nylon, neoprene and sheep fuzz was another story...). After watching the final angel fade from Engel's architecture we retreated fittingly to Cafe Engel for lohikeittoa, kähvia ja pullaa, and sweated in our thermals.

Did I mention the 35cm of snow yet?

---

* Well as I don't drink tea or like football or cricket particularly I have to do something stereotypically English, don't I? And heck, it was a record -35.5°C in Lappeenranta on Monday which is down here in the sub-tropical south not up in arctic Lappi...

Norsu huonessa

Sibeliustalon metsähalli: from Finland summer 08.

Actually I do have a couple of architecture related things to mention come to think about it. First is the Puuinfo Puupäivä in Lahti at the Sibelius Hall on Wednesday (11.11) which we are going to go along to. A good excuse to see the concert hall again if nothing else (see this old post for more). If I manage to understand any of it I will let you know!

Then next week is a (free) two day seminar series called 'Innovations: Architect and Engineer' organised by the Alvar Aalto Akatemia/Foundation and TKK. Speakers include Kenneth Frampton and Iain Ritchie, amongst others, so about three-quarters of the progamme will be in English.

After our visit to EMMA we also made a trip out to Otaneimi to use their arkkitehtuurin kirjasto their for some research Konna is doing for work. Then the next day I met up with a friend at my favourite cafe who happens to be studying at TKK at the moment, and we discussed how strange/repressive it must be for Finnish architecture students to study in Aalto designed buildings in part of the soon to be Alvar Aalto (super-)University; the elephant in the room if you like. Mind you apparently they still get frustrated about the quality/availability of seminar rooms just like any other architecture department I have heard of - but I bet they wouldn't swap with the this school in here... (and believe me these are flattering images if my memories of 1988-94 are to be trusted!)

outside/inside TKK: architecture tour 04/09.

Culture corner

Tapio Wirkkala: Utima Thule, 1967. via.

I suppose we are overdue an Architecture Corner - but not much going on that front so we'll have to cast our net a bit wider. Although only as far as Espoo it seems...

This week we visited EMMA (Espoo Museum of Modern Art) at WeeGee for an exhibition of the work of Finnish sculptor and product designer Tapio Wirkkala (1915-1985). He trod a strange path between sometimes figurative, sometimes abstract works and apparently unwilling to differentiate between his product work and sculptures. Much of his work - certainly his best known pieces - are in carved plywood (for which he used extremely high-quality birch plywood to his own specifications). 'Ultima Thule' (pictured above) which shares it's name with the Iittala glassware he also designed, is one of the centrepieces of the exhibition, although I actually liked the roughness of his studio doors more made from simple pieces of standard timber (unfortunately I couldn't find a picture on the web and we couldn't take photos). You can read more about him here and here.

Also in Espoo last night were RinneRadio (a jazz via hip-hop, electronica, straight fusion, dark dub, ambient, and Saami yoik singing experience since the late eighties) and Circo Aereo performing 'Ruostetta iholla' (rust on the skin). Featuring a RR backed choreographed acrobatic act with scaffolding, posture balls, planks, tyres, a trampoline and a suspended hoop... you can find video of their other shows on YouTube, but here is Ommatidi from RinneRadio.

Pumpkins and mitre joints

Well the new seasonal header image from the Linnänmäki Valotkarne kurpitsat photo seemed appropriate for the weekend. You won't be surprised to hear that Konna has bough a mini one to make a lantern from.

With Konna busy at work and me busy preparing for a new 'project' not much we can write about at the moment... except that as Konna is ironically doing project information in English (again) she keeps asking me what the English for such-and-such architectural term is, either by description ("you know one of those metal bars that presses the timber down" which turned out to be a compression rod/bolt) or by it's Finnish term - "what's Haapa and Terva Leppä - they are good for sauna's as they don't have much pihka - and I need to say make jiiri corners".* Usually after a bit of head scratching, leafing through dictionaries and quizzing wikipedia (suomeksi ja englanniksi) we work it out. Maybe I should start an English-Finnish Architectural Terminology Dictionary website/wiki...

*That's Aspen, Black Alder, Resin/Amber and Mitre joints, in case you were wondering.

Ruma Suomi?

From Asuntomessut 09 + Taiskan mökki 08&09: best of Asuntomessut

There has been a series on TV recently called 'Ruma Suomi' (Ugly Finland) which is described as a tragicomic investigation of how Finland (and specifically urban and sub-urban Finland) has replaced 'beautiful old timber buildings' with 'ugly concrete' in the post wars period. Architects and town-planners will be torn between running for cover and rolling their eyes and sighing at this point. To be fair the program, produced by YLE1, seemed quite balanced in also presenting the political, economic and social historical background to this - not just a reactionary attack on the designers. In particular the program questioned the still frequent urge just to rip everything down a build new - is Finland still a developing nation in that sense? Despite the fact that Finland has produced some fantastic Modern and contemporary architecture (and still does) we have to agree there is more than a grain of truth in what they are saying.

This weekend we visited this year's 'asuntomessut', (housing fair) which was held in Valkeakoski, on the event's last open weekend in fantastic weather. It was reported that the messut hit the visitor target of 5000 people & was a success...

It made me wonder what kind of success was it and for whom. I found only a few successful sides to the messut including the fiddler on the roof of Talo Valo (no.34), 2 interesting developments: passive house Paroc Lupaus (no.21) & ENSI-omakotitalo (no.17), good company of friends & free press parking near the main entrance & kyyttö cows (definitely the high point of the 4 hour stay at the messu area for me!)

The first so called disappointments were the houses located on the first loop to the right of the main entrance ('so called' as we knew that these asuntomessut were not going to be as good as Vaasa last year & that neither offered the same kind of interesting solutions as Espoo in Kauklahti asuntomessut a few years ago, both of which we visited... Saying that I should probably mention that the city had tremendous difficulties getting all the houses/flats sold in Kauklahti...)

Anyway the Valkeakoski houses no.1-10 were standard package houses (why would I go to see these to asuntomessut, when there are brochures after brochures of these solutions out there? + Finland full of these boring wannabe boxes... being too harsh on standards of our newly builds?) - one of the houses even bosted on the accessible design solutions, which culminated in high thresholds (for the main door & all doors inside), inaccessible sauna where you have more than a high chance of falling onto the 'kiuas' (=stove where you throw water...) and stairs leading to the main entrance (note secondary entrance included a steep ramp ending with a ad-hock timber 'creation' ramp between the terrace & door - still with a high enough threshold for a person with a wheelchair to have a difficulty getting in).

After these shockers we entered no.11 with a hopeful thought that we can't judge this one as it is not actually yet finished. The promised sea side features & feeling most likely had not been realised yet - perhaps the engineer designer should leave it to this. We entered the house, passing two massive garages, via 'takkahuone' (=the chilling room for sauna, where you usually have a fire place etc) without 'takka' (=fire place) which was not yet been built, we climbed to the main living floor via spiral staircase... The challenge for this house had apparently been the sloping site to the north and perhaps the fact that the house of 192m2 was designed for a SINGLE MALE (with a note: this house suits also a bigger family... uh?)

- What does the nation learn from this?

1. Perhaps we should use an architect on the challenging sites next time? Hmmm...

2. Don't date the owner of the house

Huh - the first loop ended in a cafe. Pulla & coffee had never tasted this good. Next stop was the 'celebrity house' (no.14) designed for a famous bike rider Mika Kallio & his family (incl. a bike & trophy room). The house was hideous from outside, but never the less we approached the destination happily discussing the food products from our coffee break. The massive sauna for the whole family (perhaps for the moms, dads, cousins, kids, dogs, cats, turtles, nieces, cousins friends, stray cats, neighbours, asuntomessu-visitors, etc) was pleasant, I guess the three jacuzzi/whirl pools were ok too (definitely not too many), the huge manor-like middle stair case was ok (brought to my mind tv-program Dynasty - aaaah that charmer Blake Carrington)... Was I in a bad dream with Joan Collins? I must have been as the messu-magazine said that this was a dream of most men!!! Emmdee - please comment!

Luckily the next houses were pleasant. Pretty standard, but pleasant (after the Blake Carrigton manor anything goes). No.17 had a surprising (in a good way) exterior - a by passer commented as follow: 'helvetti, että osaa olla muuten ruma talo' (= h*** that it can be an ugly house). I had read earlier that an architect's (sorry can't remember whose) comment was as follows: 'tuo pystylaudoitus on tavanomaista' (= that vertical timber bording is fairly common)... I would like to remind of the Blake Carrington in this case...

Yes - swiftly moving on to no.21 by architect Kimmo Lylykangas. This passive house was the jewel of the site. The design concept was based on the wedge shape site and the client's wish for the living areas opening towards north & the scenery over the flower fields (& towards the cows). The shape of the building gives a strong character for the upstairs bedrooms with lovely rounded roof & walls. A magnificent bonus was the internal exposed brick spine wall extending as the fist floor walkway balcony balustrade. The house fulfills VTT requirement for a passive house - the simulated heating requirement is only 23,8 kWh/m2/a (the concept of VTT passive house is tested via 3 concept houses, one being this Lupaus in Valkeakoski, second in Vantaa & third in Rovaniemi).

Fiddler on the roof

Last, but not least we spotted the violin player on the roof of no.34... Not to sound too positive about this year's housing fair (is it possible?), I still need to comment on tv-house no.35. What on earth has happened here? Outside the house strikes like a standard brick faced day care centre - slightly upscale from a standard single family house, but this almost 300m2 - also a passive house - is monstrous in it's use of internal space. Apparently client's clear vision for the way they wish to live, tv-audiences influence for the development of the house & external swimming pool (remember we are still in Finland where a good summer is 'vähäluminen' (=with little snow only)) make us vacate the housing fair as soon as we were able to find our way out from the tv-house labyrinth...

The best house was yet to come - our friend's Taiska's lovely red timber cottage in Sysmä from the 1920's. Thank you for your family's hospitality. What a lovely day after all :)

What does the nation/designers/architects learn from this?

... probably nothing, but ought to respect old traditions and design/build beautiful - EVEN IF IT COSTS MORE & to keep it passive!

Timeless expressions

My other half has noted that I make LOADS of spelling mistakes when I write (in English that is - as not sure he would find the Finnish mistakes - yet!)... This was also pointed out to me by a good friend in Uk (who thinks that her spelling is perfect... and that everyone lives in a perfect world of spelling!!!) - My response is: 'Annetaan kaikkien kukkien kukkia' (=Let all flowers to bloom) and continue blog writing even with not so perfect language skills :) A colleague of mine here in Finland has pointed out to me many times that I should write a book (ha ha - there you go you spelling chekers!) and has already figured out the name of the book & my writer name. It goes like this: Imperfect life of Joan Coupé. So if one day YOU - English friend of mine in Uk walk along the street & see Imperfect life of Joan Coupé in the window of Borders, be happy as the book is for you :) Check all you want - there will be millions of spelling mistakes - unless the editor has managed to find them all!

This brings me to (who knows how) the image above - Timeless expressions, which is the Aalto exhibition at Vellamo Maritime Centre in Kotka and to the story told on a short film re: Aalto's pants... 'Usually Aalto wore quite elegant black shorts at the summer place of the family when some visitors (even reporters & famous folk from abroad) came around. One day he was wearing dirty, baggy trousers when some important visitors were scheduled to arrive to the Muuratsalo experimental house. The wife of Aalto's pointed out this (which might have been a mistake) as Aalto is said to have started loudly protesting against this making a point that he wore exact same pair at the Paris World Fair many years back... also taking (used) handkerchiefs from his pockets throwing them around in front of the visitors saying that he used the handkerchiefs at the fair too'. Nice... So be careful before you comment on other peoples spelling as I might start throwing deliberate/random midtakes everywhere and your time will go in correcting them! HA - there you go.



Models of Aalto's small houses made by students - I can spot Villa Mairea in there... + my friend's face - can you?

P.S. It's worth your while visiting the exhibition if you are near Kotka anyways this summer. The film is funny & informative (but shown on a miniscule screen). The models are interesting too... Otherwise the usual is on show - Remember though that Sunila is very near Kotka, so pop in there too.
P.P.S. I spelt Morrissey wrong - hmmm...

Day trip to...

...Merikeskus Vellamo in Kotka on Sunday was pleasant. Maritime Centre Vellamo is a museum building in Kotka harbour (approx. 2h from Helsinki towards East) and was opened to the public on June last year. The building was designed by Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects. Building's exterior is mainly steel & glass - interior uses timber. Our second visit to this location had a better weather than last time - but still windy.

Time flies when you're having fun

Danger - Architect at work... via

What is it with architects and deadlines?

Somehow it is 10 days since our last post, although it only seems like last night. I have several things I want to blog about (including horses & cows, blood pancakes, not cycling, dentists and other random things) but we're in that mad 'draw-up' zone trying to get our Europan 10 competition entry ready, working 12 hour days redesigning everything for the n-th time, redrawing it, redesigning it again, drawing it again, re-reading the brief, starting it all again.... Having the world's worst rickety, uneven table as a drawing board, no network, flaky software and only an A4 printer (also very temperamental - rather like it's owner) doesn't exactly help. Mind you the set up is still almost as good as my last office...

The observant amongst you may be wondering why I making a big deal about this as we still have exactly a month to go, however my course starts on Monday (oh bugger I have to revise for that too), and we have Juhannus in between, and I need to get a 3d CAD model of the whole site finished next week so we can work up some perspective views then work on the written part. While Konna will only have to draw everything else! If we were doing this in an office I would hope there would be a few more hands.  Lucky it is 'only' three A1 boards... (and 10 A3's, and 2 CD's) ... and we can't even publish it here until after the judging - in January!

I don't think I quite got that...

actually I didn't: from Kiasma swag

If you're going to be late in Finland, it is good to have a good reason as lateness is, to put it mildly, somewhat frowned upon - and as excuses go 'I had to wait for Tarja Halonen to get out of my way' is not bad when being (almost) late for something. That's Finland's President Halonen if you didn't realise.

You might have read my post last month about me being one of the winners in the Ola Kolehmainen / Kiasma / Nokia Ovi valokuvakilpailu (photography competition).  As their site says, Ola chose 14 photos by 11 people (3 of which were mine - Zinc Slash Tree, Finlandia and Curves) from the 96 entrants.  Well on Friday I got my prize (luckily I wasn't too held up by a certain important person in reception) - a workshop with Ola on our efforts and tour of the show with him, which was also photographed for posterity.

 

Ola explains all... do I look like I get it?

If you look carefully at this picture you can see Ola commenting on some of my photographs. (He was interested in how these pictures went from 'documentary' to 'half documentary/half abstract' (crop out the sky...), to totally abstract; the difficulty on using a culturally, and meaning loaded building like the Berlin Jewish museum as a subject for 'abstract' photography; and also why I had chosen those pictures/subjects).  He also was extremely conversant with the buildings and architects themselves, which was interesting to me (as the only architect in the room) but perhaps over the heads of some of the others.  

Or perhaps not... Unfortunately the ten minutes while we discussed them was the only time spent speaking English for almost three hours - so it was hard to tell.  While what little I followed seemed interesting, you'll understand why I'm looking a bit blank in the photos.  I think he was discussing how naming the pictures changed them (eg. the picture of the reflection of Mies' Barcelona Pavillion 'Less Less Is Is More More' becomes a discourse on minimalism), and also how chance and accidents in the darkroom can totally change a picture even when carefully pre-planned and considered (a white building becomes vivid yellow; a magpie lands on a window ledge; a tiny weed grows unseen from behind a metal disc...), amongst other things, but... He was however kind enough to say he hoped I got something out of it at the end - probably noticing my glazed look!

We did also get a swag-bag from Kiasma (contents pictured below for authentic anal-retentive micro-blogging) - including a very apt t-shirt and pad of post-it notes considering my struggles... but my foolish dreams of shiny Nokia kit or photography books were dashed. Never mind - a fascinating day in any case.

Architecture Corner 04/09 [updated]

Otaneimi Kapeli: From helsinki architecture tour 04/09

We haven't had an Architectural Corner for a while (Konna keeps threatening to write about various things, but...) but we are still (re)discovering new & old buildings around Finland and Helsinki in particular. The other week we combined our new found love of free-loading activities with architecture and took advantage of an architectural tour of Helsinki (and Espoo) organised by Suomen Rakennustaiteen Museo and ??? in conjunction with their lecture series. (See here for a map and album)

Starting at the museum we stowed away joined a coach load of foreign students and miscellaneous hangers-on on what was a glorious (if chilly) spring day. First stop was Puu-Käpylä  - an area of model worker's housing built in the early 20's, constructed from timber - hence the puu - (in this case solid squared-off logs and timber weather boarding with 'classical' details) this is an example of the Garden City approach to sub-urban housing, and one which is now much desired. We then strayed into the adjacent so-called 'other olympic village' (housing built for the abortive 1940 summer games), popped into the local church and back on the bus.

Next was Viikki - an area we have visited before (and I said I would write about... never mind), although this time we skipped JKMM's Viikin Kirkko (see Sept'08) and looked instead at the award winning 90's timber housing area (by Arkkitehtuuritoimisto Mäki-Marttunen KY) and the Infokeskus Korona (which as far as I can work out is the university campus library) which we hadn't seen, and is by ARK-house who also designed the nearby Viikin Normaalikoulu school.

From there we headed to the airport for lunch. No not Vantaa , but Malmi.  Now used for private and light aircraft this was the original Helsinki International airport, (previously flying to Helsinki meant coming by flying-boat or float-plane) built in 1936 but replaced in 1952 by Vantaa in time for the Olympics. The buildings are still evocative of their era and have been recognised by the DoCoMoMo workgroup.

We then swung back west. Stopping off at Myyrmäen Kirkko - and an ideal day to see Leiviskä's church, which could be described as a poem in buff brick about light. Then the Peitilä designed expressive-modernist housing at Suvikumpu, which could easily be from the last decade rather than the 60's. From there we headed into Tapiola - another (more recent) example of Garden City planning and development, were we look briefly at the central ice rink 'reflecting pool', swimming pool, walked past the hotel that Konna's office had been working on, then a quick peek into the a delicate 'brutalist' modernist concrete church by Ruusuruori (who also originally designed the WeeGee-talo building for the Weilin & Göös Print Works

Now we headed towards TKK (Helsinki University of Technology) with it's Aalto masterplan and main buildings, including the well known auditorium complexe.  Again this is somewhere I have seen before (actually I think it was the first Aalto building I ever went inside, back in 2004), but is well worth a second look with the benefit of having visited, studied and even blogged some of his other buildings.

Staying on campus, we finished with a very simple, but rather lovely building. Otaneimi Chapel, by Heikki & Kaija Siren, creating an entrance courtyard from unworked timber screens, and using the backdrop of the forest and an external crucifix to bring nature into the building through it's picture windows. The chapel space is reached through a low vestibule, and to one side where no direct view out is possible, so keeping the effect of light, height and view as a surprise on entry into the timber, mono-pitched volume. An old trick - but one that works. I had to double check that this was really built in 1957, as it still seems very 'modern' and fresh today.