He(a)rd this Saturday

Before we offer up a few tweet-like snippets of Helsinki-themed conversation, let’s just note with gratitude the legacy given to our fair city by the old co-operative movement, Elanto.

The bee-logoed co-op didn’t serve just the workers who shopped or worked there or who lived in its blocks of marvellous flats. Every shopper who sauntered down busy, busy (honest) Aleksanterinkatu in the 1950s would have passed by its gleaming new department store. More than likely they’d have seen (if not noticed) the relief by artist Aimo Tukiainen now sadly (almost) covered over.

Yesterday the old building was restored to a new sense of life. We hope.

The Kluuvi shopping mall (we think mall is a more apt word than centre, or even center) reopened. This time it also hosts an interesting riposte to Finland’s disastrous food retail duopoly. In the basement is a  new local/organic food market run by the team behind Eat & Joy Maatilatori. Bizarrely little about this fascinating venture online, so here’s just one of several not-brilliant pics taken yesterday.

Divided up between local-ish producers, and boasting cheese counters, fish, veg, probably overpriced stuff in jars and beautiful bread, oh, and fish smokery and bread oven built in, the place is rather a delight.

Elsewhere in/on Helsinki yesterday:

“I love this city.”

“God it’s cold” (in various languages).

“Things are getting ugly now in Helsinki, I’m sorry to say” – Helsinki resident Carlos Lamuela speaking about plans to cover even more of Espoo and Helsinki with asphalt at Dodo’s annual Megapolis event.

“Some impolite urban planning, here by Le Corbusier” – someone talking about an image of the insane Paris Plan Voisin.

“Please do something before it’s too late”, Lamuela again.

“We’re fed up with the same shit in our food shops”, someone about Kluuvi.

“People are more difficult than buildings”, someone talking about New Helsinki.

Shops or brands? Reflections on looting

Shops and their effect on the city street have been a staple topic on our wee blog since it started. After all, the whole JHJ silliness began with a rant against the harshness and selfishness built – literally – into the heart of our city in the shape of Kamppi. (With the help of some dynamite and neoliberal orthodoxy, commuting was turned into enforced shopping).

Shops are now a hot topic in the news. UK headlines: looting and fears of tin-pot justice for those involved. Finnish headlines: better food shops for Helsinki.

Here in Helsinki there’s a lively debate going on about food shops and local services. Everybody seems agreed we need more of them. And as is so often the case, there’s an official strategy about it… Still, supermarket monopolies and regional politics that spawn out-of-town shopping hells mean that the results are probably minority affairs.

Meanwhile there are the struggling specialist shops whom the Poikkea Putiikissa (nip into a shop – my translation) campaign is supposed to help. And then, of course, there are the kinds that the actual economic/political decisions of a neoliberal city government fosters.

The kinds, obviously, that can afford the rents in a place like Kamppi – chains and big players that always appear from behind slick (if often unimaginative) hoardings proclaiming international fantasies. Happiness is drinking champagne (instead of milk) at mealtimes.

To shop is often said to be the defining activity of the contemporary citizen who, as sociologist Zygmunt Bauman notes, has long since become a consumer. No wonder the blogosphere is awash with articulate commentary about what has happened in the UK.

Hard to disagree with the idea that the good person these days is the good consumer. But if you have no income, how do you achieve that? Aspirations alone won’t get you there, particularly if you suffer the continued humiliation of inhabiting a poor British neighbourhood. (With proposals for drastic cuts (in Finnish) in municipal budgets in Finland, a part of me worries that even Finland will see humiliation-by-built-environment in the future).

But when there are others at hand to draw you into the get-the-stuff-for-free frenzy…? The shops that have been most looted have been the ones that sell brands but some of the independents have as well. As Zoe Williams noted that’s when we pay attention. In a cornershop (as the quaint Britishism has it) behind the stuff there are people. Shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, people who try (comp. the Finnish yrittäjä).

I take her point and recommend the article. But I’m sad that the people behind the branded goods can’t be brought into these stories. At the prices some of those brand shops in Kamppi are selling their stuff, you have to suspect it was produced in slave-like conditions.

P.S. Perhaps this Finnish shop, Spring House, which sells ways to turn yourself into a brand product [surely find happiness and success? ed] is the way to go – nothing material there to loot.

What’s a city without shops?

The words kauppa (shop, commerce, market) and kaupunki (town, city) are of course related. Towns grew up around commerce. Then they took shape, at least in this part of Europe, very much around their shops, in Finland usually built into the stone foundations of a building, hence known affectionately as kivijalkakauppa (stone-footed shop [we invented that, by the way, hee hee]).

So now they’re in trouble, according to Helsingin Sanomat. And you’d exepct them to be. Not just because of the recession or, as so may writers and decision makers seem to make us want to believe, because we “vote with our feet/wallet” and buy cheaper elsewhere or online. Actually, they’re going because it’s so unbelievably difficult to compete against the darling of the Helsinki decision makers: BIG.

Shopping centres/malls tend to prefer to give “representation” to big brand names rather than support small traders, even if they do make a profit. (Which is an odd way of expressing it, since the word “representation” in connection with urban government used to have something to do with democracy, as in people electing a few well-informed individuals to represent them to the rest. So it goes in our topsy-turvy political world.)

Then there’s the other aspect of this thing. That you (er, the city) help build enornmous amounts of floorspace like in Kamppi, where only the big chains will be able to operate (actually, you probably stitch up a deal before hand, working together, after all, with the “stakeholders”), and you put it, for good measure, where a sizeable proportion of the public HAS to walk past (twice?) every day – the bus station. (“Convenience store” thus defined from the point of view of the commuter, the lynchpin, one supposes, of the innovation economy and who thus has to be managed with care, i.e. offered services that make work-ife easy.)

And if you forget something you were going to get from here – or if you aren’t actually a commuter after all – you might be able to get it somewhere like here. This particular example of shameful greater Helsinki retail architecture is from Mankkaa.

Of course, you can just choose to love the places that, for a short time at least, were “Finland’s/Europe’s/the world’s” largest shopping centre (Itäkeskus, below).

Which wouldn’t be a problem (maybe) for cities if it weren’t for the impact on the street. Hmm, on which note, maybe urban planners and designers should just get rid of the street altogether. As cars recede into history (as they surely won’t. Ed.) and as people retreat into anxious privacy anyway, maybe cities can grow to look like something totally different from what we’ve got used to living in and loving over the last 100 to 200 years.

Funny thing though. In Helsinki, flats located in the old fashioned urban street and particularly the street near the shops, have the biggest price tags – decade after decade (as published in this pdf by City of Helsinki Urban Facts).

Retail-trends, Ullanlinna style, 2

Have you ever stopped to think about the connection between the Finnish for town, kaupunki, and the Finnish for commerce and shops, kauppa? Obviously they’re related. Swedish too has handel, which also covers not just shop, but retail, commerce, trade, exchange, economics etc. So in Helsinki there is the Helsingin Kauppakorkeakoulu = “Helsinki shop high school” (if you were to put it into a translation program for instance). And have you ever stopped to think about the extent to which the state, including planners, directs what can be treated as merchandise, how and where?

At JHJ we barely stop thinking about all this. And we have often stopped to think why it is that our world view puts such a huge chasm between “culture” as things we do for conventional, almost optional reasons, and “economics” as something that’s so obvious you can’t even debate it let alone change it. Christmas is culture, i.e. optional. Economics is apparently the way the world is.

Another question that springs to mind: is there actually a decree saying that Ullanlinna must sell fancy clothes at this intensity?

There’s definitely no law that says shopkeepers must festoon their windows with shiny decorations in red, white, shiny and other traditional Christmas colours. But they do anyway. From these images one can safely conclude that Helsinki has and is cultural conventions and, maybe, that “kauppa” is massively, hugely, unavoidably all about culture.

“Torikorttelit” – Before the Renovation

Here, the tram winding its way through Katariinankatu. For those who decide on how the City spends its money this is not an attractive scene. Soon to arrive: a pedestrian shopping and sipping zone to help alleviate even the worst of inferiority complexes. For this, our Progatonist has heard, is what lies behind the otherwise incomprehensible plans for change in this unique part of the world.

And here, at the other end of the soon-to-be-upgraded-according-to-international-standards (surely soon-to-fall-out-of-favour urban planning fashions? ed.) the Kiseleff shopping bazaar. These purveyors of fine tat and even finer handcrafts, are to be replaced within a year, two, three with, a better (?) version of what’s already there. In particular, the harmonised lighting and signage schemes overseen by the City and Helsingin Leijona, masterplanned by architects, are causing flurries of excited anticipation.
Not.

The sense among many who know the place is: go enjoy it now, before it’s killed off.

Wrong kind of vitality? More on Cafe Engel

Someone asked re. the last post – what’s going to happen to Cafe Engel. Below is one, quite powerful (politically speaking!), vision, from a pdf available by following links here.

We’re not sure, but Cafe Engel is going to have to move anyway, by early February. In line with international fashions in urban “regeneration” Helsinki is going to upgrade the whole area, in keeping with its historical significance, obviously. We don’t know if Engel (the cafe) will coming back, certainly if it does it will be a different place entirely. Perhaps we should be grateful that being the handiwork of the original masterplanner, Carl Ludvig Engel himself, the basic structure of the buildings can’t be changed.

Personally I’ll miss the cafe as it is now terribly – the front door that opens the wrong way (can anyone tell us the history behind that?), the layers of posters that greet you and tell you that you’re sharing the city with countless intriguing artists, writers, organisations, whatever. (I’d like to ask the city to archive the layers of posters they remove when they start their upgrading). The city also wants to make the street more pedestrian friendly. We used to think this was about ecological sustainability. We are beginning to suspect it’s more about market opportunities for enterprises and chain stores that can pay high rents for “upgraded” premises. Here’s the plan anyway, copied from those same links. Shopping, shopping, shopping, downed with Stoli and Bolli, at a guess.

From Torikorttelit - kiinteistökehityssuunnitelma

But back to reality. What else will I miss? I’ll miss the trams trundling past – not to mention seeing the cathedral every time I take a 4 or a 3, or coming around that tiny bend on Katariinankatu either on foot or by tram – both can be quite exciting. I’ll miss seeing the cathedral over my espresso – even if Engel do continue purveying a fine eating experience wherever they move to (we wish them luck), and I’ll miss the cafe’s clock that’s permanently stopped at somewhere around 12.56.

We promise to document the about-to-disappear uniqueness after our next trip to Engel. In the mean time, the management company set up to revamp the entire area is well up an running. We could not find what the City Council had decided about this, just the reams and reams of responses and representations and what looked like their summary dismissal by (?) the Council and the Planning Department. Pdfs here, under items 1273 to 1275.

Helsinki’s got rhythm

Protagonist: One of the things I’ve always loved about Helsinki, and that I missed when I lived in California and England, is umm, umm …

Narrator: Small, independent shops?

P: Of course not. San Francisco and Berkeley both have (at least had) fantastic specialist shops. And London too though it has its problems. No, even if they weren’t being systematically killed off, Helsinki’s shops could never flourish like that.

N: So what does Helsinki have that they don’t?

P: Rhythm.

N: Jazz!?

P: That too, but no I mean a rhythm of life. Autumn is different from winter is different from spring is different from the summer. Week-day is different from Sunday. December has always had a bit of a mad rhythm, party-wise and cooking-wise and shopping-wise, with fairy-lights and Father Christmases everywhere. Still, it kind of gives things a particular tempo this pre-Christmas madness, and let’s face it, there isn’t a place or a time which is more in need of a festival of lights even if it is just Kamppi’s efforts in in Christmas displays! And then January has its own tempo – especially if you’re one of the thousands who try to stay off alcohol for the whole month.

N: I assumed you’d be gutted by the Sunday opening thing but you seem to be saying the Christmas shopping rush is a good thing.

P: Yes and no. I’ve avoided going into town, certainly. All the shopping centres and Aleksanterinkatu have advertised “events” to draw people in this week-end. But if there had to be a month of shopping madness, laced with sickly-sweet drinks and spicy cakes, so be it. But you can’t keep it up all-year-round.

And I do love it when people are critical. Look, here’s a wonderfully to-the-point letter to the editor I found in Helsingin Sanomat on 19.11.

“Suomen kansalaisille on nyt järjestetty ohjelmaa, ettei kovalla työllä hankittu vapaa-aika kulu hukkaan. Nyt suomalaiset voivat viettää vapaa-aikansa kaupassa.”

Marketteihin pääsee vastedes kesät talvet myös sunnuntaisin, ja nimimerkki Eemeli ennustaa HS.fi:ssä, mitä asiasta seuraa.

N: Translation please.

P: “Citizens of Finland will now be offered activities to help them avoid wasting the free time they have earned through their hard work. Now Finns can spend all their free time shopping”

N: And lose the rhythm.

P: Have you noticed it’s not December yet?

How many shopping days left?

It’s a November Saturday in the northern hemisphere. We all know what that means. Although most shopkeepers are desperate to get people in, not everyone is welcome. According to YLE a shopping centre in Lahti has apparently decided now is the time to try a techno-fix to get rid of adolescents who hang around, not being nice and not buying stuff. The gadget emits a high-pitched noise that adults can’t hear but young people with good hearing can. It has already been tried in Britain and Holland at least. Unsurprisingly it also has a good number of oppenents, like the campaign group Liberty, who view it as an infringement of young people’s rights.

But our concern is Helsinki. Here a few Ullanlinna/Eira window displays – photographed before any of them had time to hang up the fairy lights and other “seasonal” decorations.

Korkeavuorenkatu has long had a reputation as a top-end shopping street. Well, by some standards it’s quite small as an area, but for all that rather lively.

Older, newer, home decoration and antiques, fashion for him and her, old and not-so-old, a few cafes, flowers, chemist, goldsmith/watch repair shop, a few restaurants. Many of them “atelje”, “boutique” and so on, all of them kivijalka or “foundation” shops, that is independently run, of course.

It’s not obvious who the people are who have the opportunity to wear the creations on display here, but whoever they are, the window shopping isn’t unpleasant at all.