Form follows ???

Nordic architecture, like everything else Nordic, has had a generally good reputation. Without the repeated references to the successes of Sweden, Norway and Finland in education, health and general well-being, books like The Spirit Level  and, more recently, David Harvey’s praised and engaging Enigma of Capital, would be a lot thinner.

But before I get sidetracked, let me upload a favourite but gratuitous picture and get back on track!!

Form, said some famous American, follows function. In Scandinavia (and Finland) modern architecture and design through the 20th century were often presented as pure function and technique: clear and simple solutions to genuine problems.

As a kid I thought “Form follows function” was a slogan invented by a Finnish glassware company or something to sell more Finnish stuff.

In those days Finnish ways of doing things (and Finnish tastes) felt naturally obvious and objectively speaking superior. (It helped that the right angles were at 90° and the windows weren’t drafty).

Finnish environments became the very opposite of inherited tradition or older ornamental styles. All of those words belonged to people with “culture” (read: odd rituals and irrational beliefs). We (Finns) had “nature” (read: things as they are) and education.

(Modernism was/is our vernacular). (Excuse slippage between Nordic and Finnish. Hope it’s not too irritating or contrary to your experience, dear reader).

Aaanyway, back to the topic. Actually, the function of most architecture for most of the 20th century was to absorb surplus capital (as D. Harvey argues). The ever intensifying creative destruction of material goods – building and rebuilding – is one aspect of this thoroughly bizarre but taken-for-granted phenomenon.

So some people have started to point out that architectural form follows finance, not function. There’s a book of that name about skyscrapers from 1995, and quite a few critics have peddled the idea too.

Architects help produce the landscapes of really-existing capitalism.

Form-follows-finance is not then a new idea. But perhaps as fear grips the markets and credit-rating agencies mess around with our money supply (“something wrong with the tap, dear”) it would be good to think even more about the links between finance and architecture. Particularly also since the rich have been getting so much richer (and so much more stuff) on the back of foggy financial fictions (especially in Finland).

Hence my repeated plugging on this blog of that Harvey book. Excellent, really was (though hardly perfect).

Though architectural projects these days are HUGE (even in little old Helsinki [surely New Helsinki, ed]) and there are many uncertainties on the way for all involved, once they’re completed, their impacts are HUMONGOUS. Big metal boxes, glass and steel of varying quality, motorways, tunnels, transport hubs, retail “parks”, people piled up in … [stop already! ed.]

But David Harvey insists that the problem isn’t that everywhere is becoming the same. Capitalism/ neoliberalism does not produce homogeneity. In fact it thrives on heterogeneity. Helsinki would, then, do well to sustain its unique selling points [“environmental features” surely? ed].

I read in Urban Design (spring 2008, page 23) that the City of Helsinki is pursuing unconventional urban change. “Rather than the philosophy of grand projects elsewhere in Europe” of pleasing tourists and urban consumers, the City of Helsinki is following “traditional Nordic values” and relying on the spirit of the location.

Apart from the claim being eminently contestable, it also raises the question about what a spirit of a location might be. It is produced how? By culture? Well, partly. By nature? Partly (granite is abundant here). By history?

Absolutely. Guess you could say form follows fashion then.

Something fun for Helsinki

One of the ugliest, architecturally least uplifting, anti-place-like places in Helsinki is Kamppi bus terminal/shopping hell. On the other hand it is one of the most intensely used spaces in the entire city. Quantity, in other words, is a far cry from quality.

A temporary chapel being built behind these hoardings will make up for  all the bad next year. “Quiet will be here in 2012”.

For now though, fun and sun reign supreme!! Oh, and a heck of a lot of building sites, in a few quasi-public spaces and lots of top-end residential sites (no lack of money there then, we note).

Only JHJ knows there are quite a few of us who wish things were different.

“The problem in Finland has always been the strong mainstream”. That, at least, is one of many quotable observations in one of many books I read over the summer. The Piglet Years, by Rogar Connah, an angry man’s prolix polemic against all that is wrong in Helsinki architecture. (Actually, that quote’s from an interview, so not Connah strictly speaking, but this is unnecessary nuance).

Also in the book: “what should have been the most significant piece of urban architecture in the country [Kamppi Centre] has become ‘Mall of Finland'” and the short discourse on what he calls “the agenda of a lost humanism” in Finnish architecture. It’s one of the more readable bits among much angry rant. Given that it’s aim is Kamppi how could JHJ not fight on to the end of the book!?

The Piglet Years sparked some welcome moments of agreement. But ambivalence is more the order of the day/week/season. Not only about Connah’s rant.

Ambivalence for instance about the pop-up phenomenon. Today’s example is Solar kitchen by chef Antto Melasniemi. Prioritising design as much as food it seems, it was all rather fabulous. (If you want to know the location, go online).

So why the ambivalence?

JHJ-on-the-one-hand thinks it’s a nice distraction and good use of redundant (ex-harbour) space for there to be all kinds of temporary, pop-up, low-investment, no-commitment, anti-mainstream-sounding “happenings” to liven up a little town. At least that’s what Antto tells the cameras on this little clip.

JHJ-on-the-other isn’t so sure. Isn’t this perhaps a bit of circuses when we need bread? (Something about which Jonathan Glancey has already written rather well – but regarding London – noting that while “London” was able to produce all kinds of gimmicks, as a place to live, not to mention travel, it had fallen into disgrace.)

Isn’t the pop-up, or Helsinki-as-event (note: corporate event) phenomenon about taking the easy way out, about producing temporary pretend-architecture on a low (or no) budget while the real but harder work is taking place somewhere else? Is real architecture not where there are disagreements, sweat and often tears?  Isn’t architecture – and urban policy – harder than that because what’s at stake is the stone and steel and glass that will guide our lives for years – decades – to come?

Though when a girl feels really despondent, it’s not that hard to imagine that actually the best of Helsinki is the stuff that’s NOT yet built up.

I mean the blissfully non-glass, non-steel bits that some planner or “city father” actively protected from being swallowed up by commercial values. (More on another book I read this summer, David Harvey’s anti-capitalist treatise). Like Mustikkamaa or Kivinokka where JHJ has done what generations of Helsinkians have done before: enjoyed the sunshine.

Absolutely lovely. Shame on our way out we spotted a notice asking people to sign a petition in favour of, er, we’re not quite sure, turning it into luxury flats presumably.

JHJ’s verdict: real critique needed, fun and games an optional and welcome extra.