Buildings from the decades of Finnish Independence

Map \| Architecture of independent Finland Buildings from the decades of Finnish Independence
1. Keskuslaboratorio Oy Eteläinen Hesperiankatu 4 Valter Jung 1923 (built 1924) The building represents a moderately stripped-down Classicism and its original purpose, a laboratory building, is a rarity in Töölö.
2. Parliament House Mannerheimintie 30 J. S. Sirén, architectural competition winner 1924 (1927-31) The new Parliament House was the most important public construction project in the early years of Finnish independence. It is the principal monument of the Finnish Classicism of the 1920s.
3. Art Hall Nervanderinkatu 3 Hilding Ekelund - Jarl Eklund 1927 (1927-28) The Art Hall facades express an attempt to escape the austere symmetry of Classicism. The spare and considered decorative motifs are concentrated around an asymmetrically located main entrance.
4. Liittopankki building Aleksanterinkatu 17 P. E. Blomstedt, competition winner 1927 (1929) When completed, the Liittopankki building was looked upon as a symbol of modern city culture. It represents an upward-directed architecture according to the skyscraper ideals prevalent in the United States.
5. Lallukka Artist Residense Eteläinen Hesperiankatu 14 Gösta Juslén, competition winner 1932 (1933) This Functionalist residence is an elegant and stylish example of 1930s’ architecture.
6. Main Post Office Mannerheimintie 11 Kaarlo Borg - Jorma Järvi - Erik Lindroos, competition winner 1934 (1938) The Main Post Office is representative of a restrained Functionalism. Great, solid structural masses and evenly spaced windows create a serene and harmonious entity.
7. Glass Palace Mannerheimintie 22-24 Niilo Kokko - Viljo Revell - Heimo Riihimäki 1935 (1936) The Glass Palace was Helsinki’s first urban Functionalist building and it housed modern shops, a large cinema and a spacious restaurant.
8. Olympic Stadium Paavo Nurmentie Yrjö Lindegren - Toivo Jäntti, competition winner 1933 (1934-40, 1948-51) The Olympic Stadium is one of the most important examples of Finnish Functionalism, even though it has lost much of its original streamlined elegance due to later additions and alterations.
9. Swimming Stadium Uimastadionintie Jorma Järvi 1938 (1939-40, 1951) The Swimming Stadium, located in the rocky landscape north-east of the Olympic Stadium, consists of an 8-lane swimming and water polo pool, a diving pool and a curved, shallow teaching pool. The reinforced concrete grandstand is slightly curveshaped.
10. Sokos Department Store Mannerheimintie 9 Erkki Huttunen 1939 (1939-52) The round corner of the Sokos Department Store starts off the row of high buildings on Mannerheimintie. The building blends into the lower neighbouring buildings by means of the inward terracing of its three uppermost floors.
11. School of Economics and Business Administration Runeberginkatu 14 Hugo Harmia - Woldemar Baeckman, competition winner 1941 (1948-50) With its brick facades and reliefs, this building represents the 1940s romantic trend, but the arrangement of structural elements with their high and low wings recalls Functionalist ideals. The use of tiles forges a connection with the red-brick residential blocks that surround the school.
12. Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration Runeberginkatu 10 Kurt Simberg 10, competition winner 1948 (1951-53) With its simplified forms and reinforced concrete structures, the Swedish Business School belongs to the 1950s wave of college building. The main hall and the large lecture theatre with its entrance lobby form the building’s core, which is flanked by higher wings.
13. Finnish Sugar Company Mannerheimintie 15 Hugo Harmia - Woldemar Baeckman 1949 (1951) The former head office of the Finnish Sugar Company is a remnant of a large industrial plant that operated on the site of the present Opera House. In terms of its construction material, the red-brick building is part of a tradition of industrial construction.
14. Porthania Yliopistonkatu 11 Aarne Ervi, competition winner 1949 (1957) Porthania, a University of Helsinki building, was the first sizeable structure in Helsinki to have its facades and intermediate floors built with prefabricated elements. The building is skilfully linked to the neighbouring university buildings, even though the traditional cul-de-sac structure has been relinquished in the spirit of Functionalism.
15. Rautatalo Keskuskatu 3 Alvar Aalto, competition winner 1951 (1953-54) The copper facade of this building, which was designed as a head office for the central organisations of the hardware industry, has sensitively taken the late 1920's architecture of neighbouring buildings into account. The central architectural and functional element of the building is a three storey-high covered precinct, the so-called Marble Hall, which is overlooked by the galleries of adjacent office premises.
16. Helsinki City Theatre Eläintarhantie 5 Timo Penttilä - Kari Virta, competition winner 1961, 1961-65 (1965-67) This theatre building, cladded with pale ceramic moulded clinker, is set in a terraced parkland setting. The City Theatre is representative of the modernist architecture of the 1950s and 1960s that took the surrounding environment into account.
17. Round House Siltasaarenkatu 18 Heikki and Kaija Sirén, competition winner (1968) Occupying a central position in Hakaniemi, this round bank and office building has architectural precursors in the late-1920s and 1930s modernism of Central Europe.
18. Temppeliaukio Church Lutherinkatu 3 - Temppelikatu 16 Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen, competition winner 1961, 1966-70 (1970) The walls of the church, which sits within an rocky outcrop, consist of natural bedrock and excavated rock surfaces. The interior of the church receives its light from a window that encircles a central dome, through the radiating beams that support the roof. Its impressive architecture make the church one of Helsinki's most popular tourist attractions.
19. Merihaka Haapaniemenkatu 7-20 Suunnittelurengas Oy, work group BIS (Peter Bieber, Arvi Ilonen, Sulo Savolainen) and Unto Toikkanen (1973-1986 The Merihaka residential area, a tour de force of the Helsinki construction cooperative Haka, was built on the site of an industrial area that had been active on Pannukakku Island since the 1830s. This concrete element high-rise complex, both hated and loved by the people of Helsinki, can be considered a clean-lined sample of early 1970s’ housing planning.
20. Hesperia Hotel Mannerheimintie 48-50 Pauli Lehtinen (1972) Inter-Continental Hotel Mannerheimintie 46 Jouko Ylihannu (1972) To make way for these large Töölö hotels, the buildings of the Russian military barracks were demolished in the late 1960s - early 1970s. These buildings also included the Töölö branch library, a stone building from the 1820s which had formerly been a military pharmacy.
21. Finlandia Hall Mannerheimintie 13 Alvar Aalto, Elissa Aalto 1967-1971, congress wing 1975 The Finlandia Hall is part of Alvar Aalto’s 1961-1972 Helsinki city-centre plan. In character and scale the Finlandia Hall looks different when viewed from the Töölö Bay side and from the Hesperia Park and Mannerheimintie side.
22. Forum Mannerheimintie 20 Kari Hyvärinen - Kaarlo Leppänen - Jaakko Suihkonen - Ilona Lehtinen, competition winner 1978 (1985) Forum, which when opened was Helsinki largest shopping centre, is named after the 1952 Forum commercial property which formerly occupied the site. Numerous shops, offices, cafes and restaurants located on several floors flank a light well that stretches the entire height of the building.
23. Stockmann Derartment Store Extension Mannerheimintie 1 Kristian Gullichsen - Erkki Kairamo - Timo Vormala - Jaakko Sutela, competition winner 1984 (1989) The Stockmann department store extension was built on a corner site that remained between John Settergren’s Neo-Renaissance building completed in 1889 and Sigurd Frosterus’ 1930 old section of the department store. The extension work gave rise to a triad, the latest part of which represents the translucent light architecture of the modern tradition.
24. Finnish National Opera Helsinginkatu 58 Eero Hyvämäki - Jukka Karhunen - Risto Parkkinen, two-stage competition winner 1975-77 (1986-1993) The glasswlled foyers of the Opera House, which rose on the site of a demolished sugar factory amidst a leafy waterside landscape, look out over Töölö Bay. The Opera House continues the series, which began with the Finlandia Hall, of light-coloured, cultural palaces freely located in the parkland. Alvar Aalto first proposed the building of an Opera House on the site in 1973.
25. Töölönranta Restaurant Helsinginkatu 56 Eero Hyvämäki - Jukka Karhunen - Risto Parkkinen (1996) This low, pavilion-like restaurant building blends well into the shoreline landscape of Töölö Bay. Of the building materials, the brick links the building to the sugar factory that formerly occupied the site, and the steel to the Winter Garden across the bay.
26. Museum of Contemporary Art Mannerheiminaukio 2 Steven Holl, competition winner 1993 (1996-97) Outwardly the building is sculptural in appearance. Its curving mass together with its straight section create with their spectacular city structural lines a considered spatial solution. The building, enlivened by open-minded material choices, acts as a connecting link between the Finlandia Hall, future public buildings and the landscape of Töölö Bay.
Compiled by:Helena Mattila, Anne Mäkinen, Anne Salminen and Hilla Tarjanne © Helsinki City Museum Map \| Architecture of independent Finland \| Helsinki City Museum