Propaganda or magic – what the Guggenheim can do for Helsinki’s South Harbour

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_Hotel,_Helsinki#/media/File:HelsinkiPanorama_rocco.jpg

Today The Usual (Helsingin Sanomat) waxes excited and naive about the power of the Guggenheim Foundation’s winning competition entry for improving [sic] Helsinki’s South Harbour.

Ankeasta satama-alueesta on nyt mahdollisuus loihtia ainutlaatuinen, kuhiseva satama, joka houkuttelee niin kaupunkilaisia kuin turisteja. Siksi Helsingin ja valtion päättäjien kannattaa käydä läpi Guggenheim Helsinki -hankkeen taloudelliset ja kulttuuriset vaikutukset sekä uskaltaa tehdä päätöksiä.

[And our translation] The grim harbour area can now be conjured up into a unique, teeming port that attracts citizens as well as tourists. That is why Helsinki and the state would be well advised to go through the Guggenheim Helsinki’s economic and cultural impacts, as well as to dare make decisions.

Quite.

One big flaw in their argument is that the South Harbour is not broken. (See above or come and see for yourself in case it is soon broken).

The desire to “fix” this wonderful place comes from a well known source. The business-friendly ideology that produces all the rubbish novelty that has already turned our home planet into “pile of filth” (as the Pope put it last week) but calls it progress.

More like urbanicide.

The Eteläranta site temporarily set aside by the city for the Guggenheim currently works as a ferry terminal forecourt. It’s not the waterfront boulevard of which the editorial writers dream. But it is functional. Its adverse impact on traffic is manageable. Its ambiance is that of real life, real people doing real things.

OK, most of it is car park, but compared to the nuisance of the proposed winning design, it is benign in the extreme.

And yet, all we hear from the nation’s biggest newspaper and city leaders is how this all needs to be made better. The improvement rhetoric is overwhelming. It seeks to persuade us that all people want is pretty and safe custom-built spaces for standard-issue, non-stop, surprise-free (and no doubt begger-free) entertainment. For loitering suitable for homo neoliberalis.

The phrase “entertainment-security complex” comes to mind.

Well, the harbour does have a bit of a problem. Europe’s smallest and most pointless waterfront ferris-wheel went up on the Katajanokka site on the other side of the water. But theoretically it can at least be dismantled and something more appropriate built on the site.

Next to the Eteläranta site is also the old Palace hotel. This jewel of modernism was not exactly loved when it went up in 1951 to accommodate Olympics tourists. But since then, Viljo Revell’s and Keijo Petäjä’s sleek lines have housed hotel guests and business leaders not to mention fashion shows and become part of our collective memory. And since then Helsinki residents have also come to breathe easily around its restrained elegance, which adds to, rather than takes away, the richness I call my home town.

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teollisuuskeskus#/media/File:Helsinki_2009_PD_0342.JPG

Sadly and mysteriously hotel operations in the building ceased in 2009.

Even more mysteriously, the editorial in today’s Usual ponders on how fabulous it would be if international hotel chains were to come here in the wake of the Guggenheim.

Perhaps they believe magic is better when it’s imported.

The Guggenheim wants in Helsinki – oh no!

The mood at the editorial office is distraught. Helsinki’s South Harbour, quite a fantastic piece of existing city, is at risk from the unholy alliance of creative city doctrine and international architecture.

See here for some good views on it from wonderful The Next Helsinki team.

Earlier today the winner of the prize for the notional Helsinki Guggenheim Art Museum was unveiled. There has been quite a lot of enthusiasm, even from unexpected quarters.

It’s unlikely that the jury ever concentrated on its task in the manner we Helsinkians deserve, given that there were 1 715 entries (some featured above, more on the G website).

And JHJ is not impressed by the architectural merits of the winning entry, Moreau Kusunoki’s dark tower called Art in the City (but Beacon/Majakka as well).

It looks glum and too tall and totally unsuitable for the waterfront.

Nobody here in the editorial offices here knows anyone who wants this thing – in pretty much any shape or form. (But especially not this Moominvalley wannabe glumness!)

There’s also no money for it. There’s no planning consent. The city already turned the idea down once. Officially. There’s little desire for it among ordinary people and not much among artists.

Those of us who desire the Guggenheim Foundation to eff off, frequently get told that were we more cosmopolitan we would want it.

At one point we all (at least here at JHJ) thought the horrible thing had been sent on its way. But no.

A very strong desire for it is coming from somewhere.

The politics is horrible but then the idea of the Guggenheim interfering [sic] in our art world as well as the cityscape, was always going to be controversial.

Proponents, including the country’s biggest daily newspaper, have spewed endless supportive propaganda for a Guggenheim. A little less outrageously, the G Foundation briefed Miltton Communications Group to do its propaganda locally (so-called public relations and marketing being the way business manipulates public opinion).

Given that the post-industrial economy we live in produces mostly data-fog and commercial entertainment, it’s not surprising that information about the museum is abundant but rather untrustworthy.

For Finnish-speakers, however, I do recommend listening to this YLE radio interview with architect and critic Tarja Nurmi. She covers many, many of the shortcomings of the project in a short space of time. Starts at around 9 mins into the programme.

It’s all so upsetting we can’t possibly pursue this any more.

Bits of Helsinki awaiting development

Over 80 hectares of prime real estate awaiting improvement by a construction-friendly urban administration somewhere near us. JHJ feels it needs saving from such improvement.

Meanwhile in Lapinlahti (below), where architectural and natural beauty helped generations of Finns find meaning in their lives again, one wonders what the administration has in mind.

Designed by C. L. Engel (of Senate Square fame) and opened in 1841, in 2006 its remarkable therapeutic environment was abandoned. Like empty buildings usually, this one has also started to feel alienating and problematic. Yet its beauty is such that even after a decade of neglect, its charms are definitely still there.

The city’s website suggests that finances and ideas for bringing Lapinlahti back into use of any kind may require selling part of the land (owned by the city) to a developer. They are apparently the creatures that make enough money that some might be siphoned off for breathing new life into our shared legacy.

Active citizens are campaigning for the old mental hospital to be turned into a beacon of forward-looking care.

And administrative documents (a source of jobs for a number of us, so I won’t knock them) describe the area as a unique site of cultural heritage with special architectural, landscape, recreational and botanical values.

Shame about the noise! The motorway going West to Espoo starts just across the water.

 

Mad, bad, and sad – just a road in Pasila

Dear reader,

Do you recall JHJ getting rather hot under the collar about the comprehension-defying prospect of a new major road flooding Helsinki’s lovely peninsula with ever more cars? About a year ago on this very blog?

Driving a massive road through an as-yet-unbuilt residential area is crazy on any number of grounds. Articulate critical voices in the blogosphere and even, amazingly, on the letters page of Helsingin Sanomat on 16.4.2013 have made that much clear.

Blog posts today, e.g. here and here, indicate that friends of progressive transport planning in Helsinki are simply dumbfounded.

Trailing behind everyone else once again, Helsinki is about to build a brand new road including an enormous underpass. Nothing of this scale exists here yet.

Where such massive underpasses for cars do exist, they tend to be liked by drivers (from other places) in a hurry. Most other people fear and loathe them. Some cities are turning them back into useful spaces for real people, reconnecting neighbourhoods that were earlier disconnected by … er… roads like the proposed Veturitie.

And this also feels like a grim day for democracy in Helsinki. As massive a road as this in this place, with its patchwork of land ownership, and with the superlative-defying monetary, spatial and human resources that are being poured into the vast “regeneration exercise” of which it is a part, must have been pushed through the system (even in as complacent a city as Helsinki) by dedicated and big-stakes behind-the-scenes horsetrading.

Unfortunately, unlike at, say King’s Cross in London, where local residents took up arms and waged battles for years and years, here Helsinki’s planners and politicians are in the fortunate position (disastrous for future generations as it may be) of working in an area that is almost tabula rasa.

Mad, bad and sad.

 

Sceneries of Helsinki – Adieu on this snowy Independence Day

If you are interested in how ideals congeal into matter, and if you appreciate that a seven-storey building can be “human-sized”, do come and visit Helsinki.

But whether you’re here or just planning a visit, make sure to enjoy it before it’s too late. The “pressure” to build (particularly on the water) is producing a stunning list of new and attractive opportunities for the building sector. The Planning Department’s webpage contains so much architectural and planning dross it makes me weep.

From redesigning the rural idylls of Östersundom and the fast-growing suburbs to the east, to the bombastic dullness of the other so-called New Helsinki zones, up the high-rise-hotel (a new symbol for Helsinki?!) on the western edge of the peninsula, and down to the wrangle over a helicopter pad in Hernesaari … our enormous Planning Department must be a hive of activity.

Presumably everywhere architecture and construction have sped up through computer-aided technology and politics-to-suit-the-rich. The craze for big and showy in Helsinki is also capitalizing on the genuine problem that Helsinki’s land-use is wasteful by European standards (as even Wikipedia will tell you). So as they turn over more and more of the city to speculative building, the usual suspects (Kokoomus politicians like young Mr Männistö who heads the planning committee, for example) have at their disposal a machine more powerful than ever with which to smother the city with monuments to today’s impatient capitalism, but also a vaguely green-sounding argument for building high.

Can protesters and activists keep up? They are beginning to try. Some have stepped up their campaigns with letters to the planning department and to editors (if you have access to Helsingin Sanomat you can follow an interesting exchange here), and with new websites and blogs.

Perhaps the new little exhibition at the Architecture Museum, Unbuilt Helsinki, is also a kind of protest. Maybe. I’d describe it as difficult art. But it is based on a larger, longer project that might yield some stories yet, about how the choices were once made that created the city we  still love.

Is there any point in trying to resist? Haven’t the rich always shaped the city?

Probably. But I can’t believe the rich have always been this stupid or careless. In this little gem of a city we appear to have rich folks who can’t distinguish a fine skyscraper from an a architectural erectile dysfunction.

And, to give me the excuse to share this bit of silliness (below), Helsinki’s rich presumably also think a good evening’s eating out might have some connection to forest sceneries. I think, Helsinki, we have a massive problem on our hands.

If, dear reader, you have any thoughts on the design of future Helsinki that haven’t been taken up on this blog, or that should be taken in new directions, I’d love to know. The thing is, I’m not going away, but I think this blog should now wind up. It’s time for something more serious.

Thank you so much for reading. JHJ.

International pants (make that under-pants)

Helsinki is once again smothered in darkness. It is November, after all, a month whose Finnish name carries traces of the word “death” (a hunch corroborated by wiktionary).

Silly schemes for extracting financial value out of filling in the city’s breathing spaces with mediocre junk, continue to grace headlines. Shopping centres in the burbs, shopping centres in “town”, road schemes, helicopter pads (sufficiently far from residential areas, you’ll be pleased to hear), luxury developments on the waterside, cheaper developments on the waterside, hotels and sports stadia, crimes against local forests (once again it’s time to write to your councillor about Meri-Rastila) etc. etc.

Justice, activists in Helsinki are saying, is eluding them. (But will they really rise up and protest, that is the question.)

Could this be because so many Helsinki planners and developers appear to be in thrall to New York City? (Or just money? Ed.) Many certainly appear to think Helsinki’s role model should be New York City. You know, not Madison Square Garden but er… that Helsinki Garden.

A great city, New York, despite the way its soul – in the shape of the spaces that make real life possible – is being shredded by the life-shy super-rich (Michael Sorkin’s account is to be recommended). Although super-storm Sandy may have changed the world, we hope New York’s confidence and can-do mentality will not be permanently affected by it.

But one thing is certain. The idea of Helsinki copying New York urban planning solutions, whether old or young, is, well, it’s pants.

As pants as this building spotted in a Daily M**l story about China. Which really is pants!

Day days

“Dayday is a day when anyone can create a day for a day”.

It was only a matter of time before some joker posted this one on facebook. Not least because last weekend’s effort at another “day” in Helsinki, certainly in Töölö, felt a bit contrived. Cleaning day is nice but it’s nice too to walk in the park, take the boat out, head out to the mökki.

Seems some Helsinkians are exhausted after a summer of running from one pop-up event to another. Perhaps they’re even wondering why they’ve turned into producers as well as consumers, prosumers, of urban culture.

We now create our own “content”, we even take part in  planning [can we check this? Ed], and we are told to set up our own businesses rather than relax lazily into lifetime jobs.

Yet it’s a stretch just to get the kids to school and find time to talk to the spouse – though Finns do work shorter hours than most. Still, we can forget the lazy Sunday afternoon – those over-equipped little leagues filled that slot long ago.

So it might be time that that the experts who get paid for their trouble took a bit more seriously their role in “content creation”.

Sure, we like public participation though it has its troubles. But we still/also have some seriously crap planning. Regular readers, and anyone with an interest in Helsinki’s construction projects, know this.

The latest bit of annoying planning in Helsinki concerns the railway warehouse in Vallila/Pasila. Though it’s nice that the interesting building is to remain intact externally.

And it’s nice that the Teollisuuskatu area – which is in danger of becoming a strip-mall-type insertion into the otherwise liveable (but only after popular struggle!) urban surroundings of wooden Vallila and properly dense Kallio – will become a place of work as well as of sleep.

It seems the “choice raisin in the bun” is to be carved out of the wider former railway lands and given (almost) away by VR in unceremonious haste, when a better negotiated and more encompassing planning deal or masterplan would surely be worth it and possible.

OK, many of us are upset because this means that the one genuinely multicultural venue near central Helsinki, Valtteri’s flea-market, will have to go. Why couldn’t the entire area be developed into a mix of homes, workplaces and a fleamarket that attracts a solid crowd three days a week?

It’s not too late to comment on the plans. (Visit the usual site and scroll down to Aleksis Kiven katu). But it would have been good to get in there earlier. Maybe we’ve just been too busy doing day-days to notice what’s being done in our name.

Pierre Huyghe. Streamside Day – One Year Celebration. Contemporary Art Collection ”la Caixa” Foundation. CaixaForum Barcelona

The Great Transformation

So long, summer. Hello electioneering. We hope.

Municipal elections are on 28 October and, gratefully, the Great Transformation is at least somewhere on the agenda.

By Great Transformation I’m not talking about the shift from a kind of all-round existence to the market fundamentalism most of us now take for granted. (See Karl Polanyi’s great book of that name for that story.)

Nor am I talking about the great climate transformation that this blind fundamentalism has brought with it. (Check out George Monbiot’s text about that here).

I am of course talking about New Helsinki and all the stray bits and pieces of urban development going on around it.

Did I say development? Slip of the keys.

At the small scale Helsinki is, and is likely to remain, wonderful. At the bigger scale, well, watch out and invite your friends to visit soon. Something big and ugly is expected near here soon.

Almost whichever way you look, the Helsinki Planning Department is getting a lot wrong. It makes room for cars not people, that is, for cars, not people. It plans to chop down forests where it doesn’t need to. It drives big roads into the city centre. It plans for megamalls instead of local shops. Perhaps it’s even opening the door to mediocre and anti-social architecture. (Surely not!)

It wants to build high and although plenty of people and quite a few bloggers are aghast, I have yet to find anyone who believes the madness could actually be stopped.

Saying “no” or looking for alternatives to “the authorities” perhaps doesn’t come naturally to Finns. (See here for a relevant and nice Finnish piece on the topic).

New Yorkers had been saying “no” with a vengeance since the 1960s and the prickly, saintly Jane Jacobs. Even in Stockholm there must have been critical voices over the years, since nothing like the high-going hubris of Sergels Torg has ever been allowed (at least near the centre) since that went up in the 1950s.

JHJ and friends are grateful to those who are doing something to be constructively critical, e.g. here, here and here. (This last link gets in because before the Töölönlahti moonlight swim of a few nights ago – where ordinary folks protested/rejoiced in the bay with their bodies – Peltsi Peltonen made an impassioned speech on behalf of the sea and against business-as-usual that was music to JHJ’s critique-starved ears.)

Looking forward then to urban planning inching its way onto the political agenda.

Exhausting and frustrating

Many of us consider tweeting and hanging out on facebook to be work, and for most Finns at least, reading a newspaper, on-line or on-paper, is second nature. (At least it was until Helsingin Sanomat began so unashamedly to do politics that many people have stopped following it).

But at times like these, a news blackout would be bliss. Keeping up is exhausting and frustrating!

The troublesome G-issue just will not go away. Until it does, anyone who cares about the future of Helsinki, particularly Katajanokka and the South Harbour, won’t sleep too soundly.

The last few days have been a circus of news, opinion pieces, letters to editors, fb-updates and spoofs that, despite their number and their often colourful language, possibly fail to do justice to what is going on.

Many a man with power really, really wants Helsinki to collaborate with the New York based Guggenheim bränd. Day by day Helsinkians become more wary, while proponents’ arguments become more pompous and over-optimistic. Alexander Stubb, the popular minister, would like to see a landmark in Helsinki to rival the Eiffel Tower… Emeritus professor Y. Sotamaa says “do not be afraid” (letter to HS editor today).

Given this I wonder how Helsinki has survived as the liveable city it has!

And I realise that were it not for active citizens, “les trente glorieuses” and the fine buildings that that period of capitalist history bequeathed to us, would long ago have been replaced by some form of neo-feudal horror. Were it not for critical thinkers, there would be urban unhappiness so startling that even the naive optimists and the cossetted rich would see it.

JHJ’s view is that unless one keeps one’s eyes closed and imagination switched off, one must know that cities are in crisis. (The brand new tome, Cities for People, Not for Profit edited by Brenner, Marcuse and Mayer looks like a good up-to-date take on this. Later…)

Selling the family jewels – e.g. handing over that plot in Katajanokka to a global franchise – is not be the answer to such crises. Besides Helsinki’s track record with making international deals is not good, as reported here, in English.

In search of alternatives, Helsinki’s Occupy camp is still there, tiny but full of sisu. When it comes to the Guggenheim, citizens are turning with anger and energy to more conventional tactics.

Using HS, a number of arts professionals have criticised the rush and warned that embracing the Guggenheim will serve neither Helsinki as a city nor Finland’s visual arts. If anyone should be a partner, why not Paris’ Louvre, asks Maritta Pitkänen 19.1.2012.

Nils Torvalds, (relation of Mr Linux) also offers sage warnings. The bafflement of the troika Rossi, Kivirinta, Johansson, arises out of impeccable (international) credentials in arts management. They note, among other things:

Museokokoelmat ovat osa kulttuurista muistia, ja on surullista huomata, miten yliolkaisesti Helsingin oman museon johto ylipäänsä suhtautuu kokoelmakysymykseen. [Museum collections are part of cultural memory, and it is sad to note how nonchalantly the leadership of Helsinki’s own museum approaches the question of collections in general.] HS 19.1.2012

If our money is spent on a Guggenheim, will cosmopolitan Finnish artists like Jorma Puranen or any of the others from the Helsinki School not face more icy prospects?

And if a global blockbuster exhibition were to come here, would it invigorate or emaciate?

But oh, if this were the only problem.

Questions about Janne Gallen-Kallela Siren’s connections to the Guggenheim’s board have been dealt with. But his leadership of the City Art Museum has taken an odd turn. According to reports he is about to go on holiday.

Also…

Before any decisions have been made in any public bodies – the Guggenheim not qualifying – the Museum’s staff have received an announcement that “yt-neuvottelut”, perhaps best translated as restructuring negotiations, are on their way. The reason given for the surprise announcement? The imminent impact of the Guggenheim!

Exhausted, frustrated – and stunned.

Faking it in Helsinki (longest post yet – sorry)

I had a very lovely Helsinki day today.

I went, among other places, to Munkkivuori, home to one of the most pleasant of Helsinki’s ostaris, its suburban-shopping-centres (which isn’t to ignore that Munkkivuori is a relatively urban exemplar of the type). It’s still busy and there was seasonally appropriate indoor market activity in the non-space left by the metro-plans that never materialised.

No doubt the good people of Munkkiniemi help keep the shops alive. Here, a sunny mid-day in that august part of Helsinki, the sun just scraping it through to people in the middle of the day.

As the number 14 bus made its leisurely but direct way past Munkkiniemi to more central locations, I almost felt like this was the Helsinki I used to know, before I left – whenever that was, 15, 20, 25, 36 years ago, depending on how I count it.

Helsinki, as now elderly relatives once taught me, has much to offer, particuarly if you are attentive. There are and have long been, things to notice and cherish as events, people, natural features and seasonal variation.

Look around and chances are there’s something architecturally interesting and rewarding. For me an unexciting but wonderful starter on the route of the number 14 is the magnificent Elanto co-op residential block (number 29 on this map) on the corner of Runeberginkatu and Caloniuksenkatu. Not far there’s the serene urbanity of the so-called Sonck block with its interconnected courtyards and happy residents.

This rather rubbish phone-photo with the block in the distance shows (OK, suggests) just how happy a result those old engineer-types managed to engineer with their strict building regs. (Taken at 12.13 on December 3rd, 2011).

It also demonstrates an important fact about Helsinki life.

Light. It comes at odd angles. Sometimes it comes very rarely. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all. For weeks.

In those difficult moments some of us Helsinkians resort to carbon-hungry but Vitamin-D-rich beach holidays far, far away. Some of us (also) resort to remedies that come in bottles, of alcohol or other drugs, such as this quaintly named product so popular in Finland: Minisun.

And many of us appreciate, explicitly and openly, the sky we see through the trees and above the roof-tops and over the open spaces that adorn our beautiful home.

Recently we here at JHJ have also discovered a way of dealing with the dark. We trick our bodies into believing we are … somewhere else. That is to say, somewhere on a latitude where elsewhere on this weirdly wonderful planet people ever considered it worthwhile trying to build cities.

The point being that Oslo, Helsinki and St Petersburg are oddities. Only due to the ruggedness of their inhabitants and thanks to a little help from Mother Nature, have so many big things been built here. Over in Canada things look very different. (Having said that, entrepreneurial regional governance 1950s-style seems to have helped the Norwegians along, just as it did the Finns.)

So, Helsinki is survivable if you have the right insulation, sensible footwear, long johns, all-in-ones for small children, cars for fussy types and even under-pavement heating for wearers of nice Italian shoes etc. etc.

But nothing – as yet – has been found to make a serious impact on the lack of light. In fact, it’s more than likely that climate change is increasing the number of overcast days already.

And may the gods save us from another winter of no snow: no fun, no beauty, no winter.

Can the artificial life help? Is artificial light the answer? Well, it helps. Rather than the full-whack (not to mention the light-emitting ear-plugs!!), our household went for the bird-song-accompanied fixture that may have (temporarily) redeemed the reputation of gadgets in this household.

I mostly agree with Victor Papanek who wrote sagely in the early 1980s that people “curse the appliances and gadgets that clutter our lives and that seem to wear out at nearly the same rate as the warranty”. I make an exception when it comes to gadgets that make living through Helsinki winters a little more palatable – (fake) daylight and “natural wake-up sounds” instead of the brutal brrrrrringg of an alarm clock. Well done Philips!

Now among the other things that now-elderly relatives taught us to value and develop further were pragmatic and everyday bits of design and problem-solving. Some Finns seem to think these are unique to our race but as a nomad of sorts I know differently.

Still, I do like the making do and mending of my country folk just as much as I enjoy the quasi-craft skills one needs to enjoy a mökki holiday or to bake a really pretty joulutorttu, and I appreciate the user-friendliness of a Fiskars knife and I really love not having to choose between too-hot and too-cold taps as I did in the UK. I also love the way Finnish bars and cafes provide blankets for outdoor seating. Some also add those horrid patio heaters to them but many do not. And this is what I consider a sane adaptation to living at the same latitude as Canada’s Hudson’s Bay.

Which brings me to the news.

Last week’s City of Helsinki tall buildings report is still, unsurprisingly, mostly unread. A number of, mostly unhappy, responses have been published in The Usual (pay-to-view), including today.

Jätkäsaaressa kerroskorkeuden saneli norjalainen kiinteistösijoittaja Arthur Buchardt. Kun alueen asemakaava vahvistettiin pari vuotta sitten, kerroksia oli “vain” 16, nyt esitetään, että niitä olisi 34. Virkamiehet perustelevat Buchardtin sanoneen, että jos hän ei saa rakentaa korkeaa tornihotellia, hän ei rakenna ollenkaan. Yleensä tällaista perustelua käyttävät pikkulapset.

or

In Jätkäsaari the number of floors was dictated by the Norwegian investor Arthur Buchardt. When the area’s local plan (asemakaava) was adopted a couple of years ago there were “only” 16 floors, now the proposal is for 34. Council officers reason that Buchardt has said that if he should not get a tall hotel-tower he won’t build at all. Usually this kind of reasoning is used by little children.

So writes Harri Hautajärvi, former editor of Ark, signing off as an “architect who has seen enough (small) towns haphazardly splintered by skyscrapers”.

And to link this back to the point about living at these latitudes, he also notes:

Tornihankkeiden mallinnuskuvat ovat kiiltokuvamaisen kauniita. Päiväsaikaan todellisuudessa tummina näkyvät lasitalot on esitetty vaaleina. Pilvenpiirtäjien ympärilleen langettamaa varjostusta on selvitetty hyvin tarkoitushakuisesti.

as in

The tower schemes’ renderings are picture-pretty. Glass buildings that in reality appear dark in the daylight are represented in pale shades. The shadows thrown around them by the skyscrapers have been demonstrated most tendentiously.

Meanwhile Arkkivahti is also keeping watch over architecture threatened by the needs of luxury tourism, along with amenity societies and residents’ associations no doubt soon to be accused of NIMBYism around the wealthier and perhaps even less wealthy parts of our fair city.

p.s. the Kämp on Esplanadi has a rubbish reputation. Not a very good price-quality-ratio as we say.