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.

Work and Helsinki’s Liberated waterfront

We here at JHJ’s editorial are a little obsessed with Helsinki’s recently “liberated” waterfront.

Two delightful visits to the former harbour area now known as Kalasatama (Temporary), were serendipitously followed by reading a little bit about labour migration. Which, after all, has so much to do with urban development. And with over-development and under-development. And with other important stuff.

In Kalasatama there’s one derelict office building with a sign advertising The Association of the Construction Sector Unemployed. It seems (based on google) that they have recently moved to new premises. The boarded up windows heightened the sense of loss. So did the presence of so much of what used to be solidly constructed as well as useful being left abandoned. Temporarily abandoned, that is, until the place is built into a residential area.

But back to the unemployed builders. It seems that after a disastrous year and a bit, the construction sector may be on an upward path again. At least according to Rakennuslehti.

The sector is a hugely interesting creature. It seems that the big players in Finland are just as susceptible as big construction companies anywhere, to exploiting migrant labour. In a column in the old (but not tired) political magazine Ydin, the leader of Finland’s Left Alliance Paavo Arhinmäki, notes that Finland currently hosts between 20 000 and 30 000 migrant construction workers. They mostly earn less than unionized workers who benefit from Finland’s long tradition of collective agreements. Needless to say, employing them also creates certain, shall we say, “flexibilities” as regards both work conditions and tax-paying, particularly given the opportunities/ complications created by sub-contracting or sub-sub-sub-sub-contracting. Arhinmäki puts the number of unemployed Finnish construction workers at 20 000.

One wonders where they should try to make their home, in order to find work.

Sailors, of course, have to adopt an extremely flexible notion of home. Did you know that about half of the world’s sailors come from the Philippines? And that makes them frequent users of Seamen’s Missions, apparently. Oh, that’s handy, there’s an outpost of one right here in Kalasatama too! (Called, using the former name of the place, Sompasaari Seamen’s Mission). See their logo on the container behind the partyers in the left-hand pic.

There has been a clutch of voluntary organisations hanging around Kalasatama this summer, helping the City produce lots of events and make it a destination. And though the City can’t have known what a glorious and hot summer it would be,  the containers and the vegetable plots (allotments, above) have been in good use. After some effort (!) even the 70 metres of yellow fence found its spray-can-carrying decorators. Here, “Work” and “Be good to Helsinki” (better translation suggestions are warmly welcomed by the editorial team).

Below, in the background, one of Helsinki’s “boilers”, the Hanasaari Combined Heat and Power Station “B”. Station “A” has already been dismantled. More homes on the site soonish, by Helsinki Planning Department.

Fish Harbour and Alpine Park?

Yes, these are literal translations of where the pictures below were taken. Summer is short around here. Enjoy it while it lasts. And that probably means not being online.

This view and the next couple of photos are explained by this:

After catching up with the voluntary organisations hanging out in the sunshine in the middle of a field of tarmac (Kalasatama Temporary as the City has branded it), I spotted a family of birds (don’t ask what make, I’m a city girl) on an outing. Then I took the metro to Sörnäinen before heading (by taxi, the gay pride march confused the traffic and I was just confused generally by the geography of Alppipuisto/Alpine Park) to the PAX festival being held today and tomorrow in a little-known park right in the middle of this city!

And then, in this season of summer festivals, you have to remove the portaloos, locally known as Bajamaja.

Moi moi!

Did we miss the worst June storm since 2002?

Next weekend the Helsinki Planning Department showcases its new projects for new Helsinki on the banks of the River Thames. Part of the wonderful ramblings of the London Festival of Architecture, the idea is to show Londoners that Helsinki has lots of lovely waterfront real estate waiting to be developed in more commercially interesting ways than those afforded by harbour functions. To use their own words, they will launch a

vivid Urban Pilot project and opens doors to Helsinki World Design Capital in 2012

for the delectation of the tourists and locals (however defined) who now enjoy the South Bank of this big city [get back to Helsinki! ed.]

OK. So last week-end was miserable weather. Despite this, Helsinki celebrated its own special day, hanging out together, going around in scanty clothing and well … more below. Helsinki day on 12th June is said to be a celebration of the city’s founding in 1550. It’s one of those (many) events in Helsinki that defies any sense of consistency between different languages or cultures. Helsinki This Week being a monthly publication, and Helsinki Week the event being shortened on the Finnish-language website to just one single day…

Anyway, meanwhile Kalasatama had a series of events at the shipping containers that have been deposited there for temporary (pop-up?) use, after some not inconsiderable foot-dragging by parties who shall remain unnamed, for the enjoyment of citizens to be organised (for free, for whom?) by a handful of voluntary organisations, including the Finnish Seamen’s Mission, Public School Helsinki and Dodo ry. Well, what else would you do with a former harbour area that’s a pile of rubble with 700 metres of yellow wall waiting to be decorated. Below the walls after Minnamaria Toukola had had a go at it (photo by Pasi Autio).

The containers and the social activity that’s taking place in and around them will be in Kalasatama until the end of September.