Suomenlinnan opastuskeskus

The Suomenlinna visitors' center was designed by Arkkitehtoimisto Laiho-Pulkkinen-Raunio and was completed in 1998. The architects renovated and added a 510 m2 wing to a brick warehouse originally built in 1783. In this panorama, the addition is at the left.
The entrance is at the seam between the new and old portions of the building.
The warehouse parallels the canal between Iso Mustasaari and Susisaari, while the addition is oriented according to the path which leads to the bridge over the canal. The two wings thus form a dihedral angle.
The seam is a zone where the two units interpenetrate rather than a hard edge. Although the material palate is broad, there is a logic behind each of the material choices.
A beautiful spiral stair in the seam leads up to a glass-block bridge.
An intermediate handrail forms a shell around the newel and makes the winders relatively wide even toward the center of the stair. In this sense the stair is helical rather than spiral.
Looking up at the stairs from below. The wood treads are slotted at their front and back edges so that they can be supported by knife plates welded to the steel risers.
Haarapääsky outside the visitors' center. Like Marcel Proust, I would want to be a swallow if I were a bird!
Re-entering the Helsinki harbor, the ferry arrives at Kauppatori square. My apartment is a five-minute walk from here.

hän laulaa Helsingissä

Most Finnish popular music is written in English so as to appeal to an international audience. Jonna Tervomaa, however, sings in Finnish. The video for "Läpikulkumatkalla" was filmed in Helsinki - you can see some typical buildings as well as Esplanadi park. Of course the city is much more beautiful in color...but I suppose that's the point of the video.

hyvää suomalaista ravintolaa

Some good things that I have eaten recently:

In Tampere, at Plevna in the old Finlayson textile mill, I had mustamakkara, "black sausage," accompanied by the brewery's own cider. Mustamakkara is the traditional sausage of Tampere; it is made from cow's blood and served with lingonberry jam. The only other time I've eaten blood sausage was at Les Trois Soleils du Montal in the Périgord. The Tamperelainen version had a looser consistency and, while quite flavorful, and was not quite as strong.

Suomenlinna has at least two good places to eat. The Walhalla pizzeria occupies part of a fortified building at the south end of Kustaanmiekka. Finnish pizza is not always good, but the ones here are excellent, even if the toppings are unfamiliar to American palates. My "Nikolai" pizza (named for Nikolai Sinebrychoff, whose brewery is now an art museum) included capers, pickles, and sour cream! At the north end of Iso Mustasaari, just off the main ferry quay, the brewery restaurant offers surprisingly good food at reasonable prices. I've eaten here twice and have been impressed both times.

Probably the best meal I've had since coming here was at Nokka. The restaurant is on Katajanokka, of course, in a brick building just under Uspenskin cathedral. It's hard to know whether the best seats look north over the harbor or are next to the floor-to-ceiling window to the kitchen. (The kitchen is immaculate, but it was odd to see induction cooktops rather than gas burners. Induction cooktops are also used at Chez Dominique, so perhaps they are preferred in Finland.)

I started with Alhopakan ankanmaksabrûlée ja mustaherukka-Sakastiviinihilloketta, a sort of crème brûlée made of foie gras custard topped with a glazed crust, served with toast, a small salad, and a compote of black currants and Sakasti wine. Nokka showcases the producers of quality Finnish ingredients; the duck liver came from Alhopakka farm and a picture of farmer Markku Pietilä (with a duckling on his shoulder) was in the main dining room. My main dish was a delicious fish preparation, pähkinäpaahdettua kuhaa ja tomaattivinaigretteä, roasted pike-perch with vegetables and a tomato vinaigrette. For dessert I chose juustoja Hakaniemen Hallista, cheeses from the nearby Hakaniemi market hall. This wasn't as good as my other selections, as most of the cheeses were bland imitations of famous French cheeses. Although Finland has plenty of good food, I haven't found any exciting local cheeses. The most interesting Finnish cheese is juustoleipä, "cheese bread." This has the consistency of paneer and is round, flat, and about a centimeter thick; it is baked and serve with cloudberry jam. Even juustoleipä, however, owes more to the preparation than to the inherent quality of the milk.

Finally, while it's not Finnish, the Belge bistro in central Helsinki has, as befits its name, outstanding beer and French fries. The decor includes Tintin posters!

Kalevan kirkko

The Kaleva church is located in the eastern outskirts of Tampere, Finland's second-largest city. The center of Tampere (between Hameenpuisto park and the Tammerkoski rapids) feels more urban than most of Helsinki, but Kaleva and other surrounding districts are not densely-built. The church is in the center of a wedge-shaped park defined by Teiskontie and Sammonkatu.

The church was designed by Reima and Raili Pietilä and was completed in 1966. Like a Gothic cathedral, its walls consist only of structural ribs separated by glazing. Here the ribs are concrete planes that have been "folded" for rigidity. The exterior of the concrete is clad in white tiles, while the interior has a rough texture.

The Pietiläs' work is figural and complex. In their two other buildings that I've been to - Dipoli in Espoo and the Metso library in Tampere - their romanticism produced somewhat chaotic interiors. The Kaleva church is equally sculptural but its interior space is comprehensibly organized.

The ceiling consists of additional concrete ribs clad with steel acoustic baffles.

Interior furnishings also consist of faceted planes. The pulpit and the reflector above it, visible in the photo of the nave, are of board-formed concrete. (Almost all concrete in Finland is board-formed, but in Kaleva church all surfaces except these two are slide-cast.) Handrails, pews, the choir seating which cascades down from the organ, and the 16m organ itself are made from Finnish pine that has been similarly "folded." The correspondence between massing and detail contributes to the cohensiveness of the building.

Detailing of less glamorous aspects of the building was also carefully done. Air is supplied from floor registers that follow the segmented planes of the walls. A permanent 30m ladder adjacent to each window not only allows for cleaning the glass but also provides a support for speakers, light fixtures, and signage. It's rare to see a building in which even fire extinguisher signs have been thoughtfully placed!

korvasieni

I'm writing this while waiting for my poisonous mushrooms to cook.

Today at Stockmann I found some cartons of fresh korvasieniä. The name means "ear mushrooms"; in English and French these are known as the "false morels." The mushrooms look a bit like oversize morels but are irregularly-shaped, aren't pointed, and don't have hollow stems. I love morels, but these smell even more delicious!I decided to get some, sauté them in butter, and put them on pasta.

Next to the mushrooms were brochures describing the mushrooms. I picked one up even though I need a dictionary and lots of time to read Finnish, and I don't understand Swedish at all. (Like most things in Helsinki, the brochures are printed in both languages, as 6% of Finns speak Swedish as their first language.) However, the brochures looked informative enough to convince me to look online for information in English. It's a good thing I did! It turns out that korvasieniä are poisonous unless they are boiled! They contain a compound called gyromitrin which can cause liver failure and death... Fortunately gyromitrin is water-soluble, so by blanching the cut-up mushroom in water twice, 99% of the gyromitrin can be removed.

My new plan is to blanch the mushrooms - three times, just to be safe - and then sauté them! I've got the windows of my apartment as wide open as they can go, and I'm drinking lots of water.

Lauritsalan kirkko

Lauritsala is a town seven kilometers northeast of Lappeenranta, in southern Karelia. The concrete church was designed by Toivo Korhonen and Jaakko Laapotti and built in 1969. The church is approached through a planted forecourt.
In plan the building is an Isosceles right triang.e, while in section it is a right triangle with curved (probably hyperbolic) hypotenuse.
The altar is at the corner of both triangles and is daylit. To accommodate the skylights, the board-formed concrete ceiling gives way to curved concrete beams.
The geometrical rigor of the form is alleviated by careful detailing and a variety of surface textures.
(posted 23 July)

musiikkia ja jääkiekkoa

Last year, the Finnish metal group Lordi won the Eurovision music contest. This was the first time Finland won, although it had participated since 1961. It was also the first time a metal group won; the contest is usually dominated by folky pop music. The company that wins the contest one year hosts in the next, so this year Eurovision was held in Helsinki. For a week before the finals, the city was teeming with bands and tourists from all over Europe. Although I didn't watch the actual event, I did meet a bunch of American friends to hear Finnish hip-hop live in Senaatintori.
(Thanks to Katherine for the photo.) You can see snippets from "Don Johnson Big Band" at Leasa's blog and Laura's blog. The little girl dancing around in her huivi (headscarf) was quite charming! Audrey guided us to a Czech bar next to Rautatieasema for dinner (very tasty) and Marian Helmi for drinks afterwards.

The next night included another big event: Finland played Canada for the world hockey championship. Senaatintori is the principal civic space in Helsinki, and the sloping pavement and steps up to the cathedral form an ampitheater. A big crowd of blue-and-white clad fans showed up to watch the game on the giant TV screens set up in the square. The game took place in Russia.Although Finland was outskated by Canada, 4-2, the fans were still chanting "Su-o-mi" until the end.In Finland it's legal to drink alcohol in public, so there's nothing amiss with the beer bottles in these fellows' hands. The pantti (deposit) of 15 cents per can or bottle ensured that almost everything got recycled, and the bottles that did get broken somehow got cleaned up overnight.

menin Satakunnan

Last week I took my first trip outside of the Helsinki metropolitan area. At Auli Puhakka's invitation, I joined some students from TKK on a trip to Satakunta. En route we took a coffee break in Humppila. The complex where we stopped contains a glass workshop and we were fortunate to see a team blowing one of the lovely birds designed by Oiva Toikka. The glass is blown into an oval, decoration is applied in a spiral wrap, the head is attached, and finally the bird is cut off the blowpipe and placed in an annealing oven to cool. The pipe is attached at the bird's neck, and the scar of the pipe is covered with a blob of glass which forms the head.
Our first stop was at the Villa Mairea in Noormarkku, one of Alvar Aalto's masterpieces. Renovations, including work on the windows, precluded our seeing the interior. We will return once the work is complete, but for the mean time, here are a few photos of the exterior.

The approach to the house runs through a birch allée.
The house is surrounded by a forest of widely-spaced trees - a landscape referenced by many of the building's details. Here is the iconic view from the driveway. Although quite large (some 800 square meters), the building's irregular composition and diverse materials reduce its apparent scale.
The exterior fireplace between the house and the sauna.
Railing detail.
We stopped in Pori for just a few minutes to get a bite to eat, then drove south to Rauma. The heart of Rauma is the old wood town, which is listed in the UNESCO world heritage registry.

Architect Jukka Koivula, who was instrumental in getting the town protected and who continues to be involved with its preservation, gave us a walking tour of the town. He suggests that historicist facades should be applied to several buildings that were designed a few decades ago without regard for the historic context. This proposal led to a discussion about authenticity in architecture. Which is the lesser evil: applying a pastiche veneer, or retaining buildings that disrupt the character of the place?


Jukka Koivula lives in the old town; this is the corner of his house. The decoration on the window trim is indicative of his profession: it consists of pencils, with erasers between them!

kallista perunaa

As I've mentioned before, Finland is a good place to eat potatoes. They are ubiquitous and excellent. Even the boiled potatoes that come with the lunches at Dipoli are fine; those in other restaurants are even better; and the lapin puikula variety is one of only four Finnish products that the European Union has granted a protected appellation (see note below). This means that like most of Europe's other famous products, such as Camembert de Normandie, prosciutto di Parma, and lentilles de Puy, the lapin puikula is recognized as a food product that has special qualities deriving from the place where it is produced. (The other Finnish products with protected appellations are sahti beer, karjalanpiirakkaa pastries, and kalakukko fish bread.)

So when I found some "varhaisperuna" (early potatoes) in the store, I was intrigued. At 29,90 €/kg (equivalent to $18.55 per pound) these were certainly the most expensive potatoes I've ever seen. I bought a plastic tub containing six very firm plum-sized yellow potatoes and a few sprigs of dill. Last night I boiled them in some water (with the dill and some salt) and ate them with a little butter. They certainly were delicious - quite flavorful and with a smooth, even texture. They probably were the best potatoes I've ever eaten (although I've never had Joël Robuchon's signature purée). However, the lapin puikula potatoes I bought last month were very nearly as good...and about one-tenth the price.


NOTE: The United States unfortunately does not recognize the EU system of food appellations. This is not so much because of different food cultures but rather because the American legal system favors commodity production over consumer protection. Big business wants you to keep buying "Champagne" made in California rather than Champagne, tasteless "Parmesan" from Wisconsin rather than Parma, and equally tasteless "Brie" from some domestic factory rather than from a farm in Brie. (Because of the absurd American cheese laws - passed at the behest of Kraft Foods - it's illegal to import true Brie de Meaux and Brie de Melun, at least not one that's young enough to eat. The "Brie" found in the US is nothing like the real thing.)

Finlandia-talo

Most photographs of Finlandia Hall (Alvar Aalto, 1975) don't show the basket-weave effect produced through a slight curvature of each marble panel. Perhaps Aalto had woven birch-bark shoes in mind when he designed the cladding. (See for example the shoes in Albert Edelfelt's 1890 painting of Jesus meeting Mary Madalene in Finland.) In any event the texture relates the large planar surfaces to human scale.Unfortunately the Italian Carrara marble that Aalto used is inappropriate for this climate. Behind the building, a series of large wire baskets filled with fragments of rubble attests to the fact that the panels need to be renewed every decade. I couldn't figure out the purpose of the baskets; it turns out they're an art installation.

Interior view.The line of the mezzanine is inflected so as to engage the structural columns. The resultant occupiable spaces do not fulfill any functional requirements; they allow for serendipitous use. Providing spaces that are not specifically programmed allows occupants to use a building in ways that the architect might not have anticipated.Accommodating individual responses thus requires the architect to sacrifice a degree of control but allows for a richer range of experiences. It's an approach that is more common in landscape architecture and poetry than in architecture. (W. B. Yeats wrote, "a poet who interprets his own poem limits its suggestibility.")

A change in handrail texture gives a tactile cue that the staircase has ended.
Detail of handrail attachment.Exterior handrails, although not leather-wrapped, are attached using the same detail. However, weathering has resulted in the metal staining the marble. While weathering can enhance the appearance of materials and surfaces, it is most likely to be successful when anticipated by the architect. At Finlandia Hall, the irregular greenish stains are incongruous against the carefully finished marble.

I went to see a concert at Finlandia Hall: Gustav Mahler's Seventh Symphony. Mahler was a contemporary of my favorite composer, Jean Sibelius. However, Mahler seems to have lacked the restraint that characterizes Sibelius' work. Mahler's Seventh Symphony consists of five wide-ranging movements; the orchestration includes two harps, a mandolin, a guitar, cowbells, gongs, and an enormous brass section.

Fortunately for me, this wasn't the Swan of Tuonela, but here are two images of a "kyhmyjoutsen" on its nest. The Pornaistenniemi reserve is near the old city power station in Arabia, just 6 km from downtown Helsinki!

hiustenleikkuu, maalausta, illallinen

I got my hair cut today, for the first time outside the US. My hairdresser was from Oulu, a town she found quite dull, although she did appreciate its traditional black-bread-and-potato soup. After shampooing my hair, she put her hands on my head and squeezed, without moving her hands. This had an astonishing effect: after a few seconds, I suddenly perceived an intense herbal smell. Presumably the shampoo had some plants in it, but its scent was unnoticeable before. Are there nerves in the scalp that are connected to the nose? Or is it simply that stimulating one sense (in this case, touch) makes another (smell) more receptive? The romantic in me wants to believe that the woman in Akseli Gallen-Kallela's In the Sauna (1888) is using the same technique, and that it is a Finnish tradition...

One of the advantages of living in Helsinki is that the Ateneum has the world's largest collection of works by Gallen-Kallela, my favorite artist. Paintings currently on display include Old Woman and Cat (1885), The Great Black Woodpecker (1894), Lemminkäinen's Mother (1897), Fratricide (1897), Head of Anna Slöör (1897), Kullervo Cursing (1899), Ilmarinen Plowing the Field of Vipers (1900), and Kullervo Rides to War (1901).

For dinner I had my first meal at a serious restaurant, Sundmans Krog. I chose the Menu Krog (36,50 €) which consisted of three dishes. Entrée (in the proper sense): Krogin silakkapöytä - Buffet of Baltic herring prepared in various ways: large grilled herring; a sort of baked herring loaf; herring in various cream and tomato sauces; herring with dill; and, best of all, tiny herring pickled with sweet red peppers. Plat: grillattua siikaa, muhenettua perunaa ja sitruunakastiketta - Grilled lavaret (whitefish) with a dark lemon sauce, on top of some buttery potatoes in cream sauce with finely julienned spring vegetables. Dessert: pieni appelsiini-crème brûlée ja lakkasorbettia - Cold orange crème brûlée with cloudberry sorbet; the orange goes well with the cloudberry.

All three of these were made from quality ingredients, carefully cooked, and attractively presented. I wouldn't call the meal exceptional, but it was certainly quite good and a good value.

To drink I had a glass of Alsace riesling (2004 Winzenberg grand cru from Hubert Beck).

toinen juhla

For May Day itself, most of Helsinki heads out to the parks for picnics and fizzy drinks (Champagne, beer, sima). As always, click the photos to enlarge them.

Kaivopuisto park panorama.
The sun over the Gulf of Finland. Here we are looking southwest; on the horizon is a ship en route to Stockholm.

Students from Japani, Kanada, Amerikka, and Tšekki (Czech Republic) celebrate Vappu. From left to right: Franta, Michaela, Katherine, Ayana, me, Masako, Liesl, Rebecca, and Jessie.

hyvää Vappua!

The first of May is a holiday in Finland. Although partying began several days earlier, the official start to Vappu is at 6:00 PM the day before. A big crowd congregates at the statue of Havis Amanda located between Kauppatori square and Esplanadi park.

TKK students are hoisted into the air.

The statue is ceremonially washed.

At 18:00 sharp, Havis Amanda gets a student cap.

Now the festivities can really begin!
The photo above was taken in Senaatintori square, just north of Kauppatori. The student at lower left is wearing the traditional student cap and overalls (red indicates that he is studying chemical engineering), and is selling this year's edition of the Vappu humor magazine.