puuarkkitehtuuria

I forgot to mention that on Friday I attended the final two lectures in the "Wood Works" series. The first was by Pekka Helin and the second by Matti Sanaksenaho. Helin feels strongly about the role of craftsmanship in architecture - although as Philip observed, his work doesn't always uphold his rhetoric. Helin noted that while steel and glass elements are almost always prefabricated, wood (and concrete, which he didn't mention) ones need not be. He also mentioned briefly a "soap treatment" for interior wood surfaces - over time the wood becomes softer and softer underfoot. I need to research this!

Sanaksenaho's work was more interesting, largely because his projects have stronger conceptual underpinnings. In addition, his presentation drawings are very attractive; his renderings include digital mixed media and watercolor over pencil. Sanaksenaho was the architect for St Henry's church in Turku. Shaped and built like an upside-down boat, this building was featured last year in the Nordic Heritage Museum's exhibit of Finnish churches. He remarked that the interior pine surfaces are unfinished and that the light coming into the space will, over time, permanently register on the wood - an architectural "goût de lumière." It is easy to make a building handsome when it is new, and old buildings are attractive simply because of their "age-value" (Alois Riegl's term), but it requires sensitivity and foresight to design a building that will weather gracefully from the former state to the latter.