Sauna Model

Regular readers of this here blog will remember a few weeks back when we spent a week up at Lake Kiljava measuring sauna buildings there. After returning to Helsinki, we built small scale wooden models of them using the woodshop in the architecture studio building. A *very* nice woodshop I might add. HUT, the university here, has a famous summer program called the "Wood Program" where students from all over the world come for a term or two and build a wooden structure of some sort. Some very beautiful ones.

Like in the US, they build wooden models of their designs. Unlike the US, however, they build these models out of real wood pieces rather than out of the hobby shop, pre-made, bass wood we are used to. The models come out differently... fewer details, more solid, often with wood craftsmanship as a part of the model. It adds something to the models we build... a little extra space for artistry and expressiveness I think.

In any case, here are some photos of the model shop, us working, and the model we built. Which, just to brag a little, was archived by the Finnish Museum of Architecture here in Helsinki! Wooo wooo!! More photos here...

Viikki Library and Church

Yesterday I did another bike tour, this time over to the east edge of Helsinki and the town of Viikki. It is a high-tech area under a frenzy of development. Lots of neat company buildings and apartment structures all going up in a hurry. This is the way that development happens in Helsinki. The city was essentially relocated to this site in the early 1800s from where it had been up north. The goal was to establish a port to compete with the Russian city of Tallin located in Estonia just across from Helsinki. Anyhow, Helsinki ends up owning the vast majority of its own land and development happens under the control of the planning department for the city. It is not like the US where a developer speculates by buying and developing a piece of have buildings here and there and property, here the city decides that a particular area is going to become a town, it is going to over there will be an apartment building which the city continues to own and rent to the residents.

My goal in visiting Viikki was to see the new church there, which has already become internationally famous. It was designed by the firm JKMM, one of their architects had visited and lectured us earlier in the term. Before I found the church however, I came across the Viikki Library, also brand new. I recognized it as a building another lecturer had shown us on Tuesday. It is great! A 5 story round building with a quarter of it sliced out. There are these narrow atrium spaces that run from the floor to the roof along hallways leading out to the edge of the building, where greenhouse spaces are placed inside the double layer glass skin of the building.

After wandering through there I went on down the road to the Viikki Church. This church is very nice, all wood interior and wood shingle exterior. I especially liked the shingled exterior which is weathering to a lovely silver grey. Inside everything is wood. I mean everything. The walls, floor and ceiling are spruce, the chairs are aspen, there is some oak benches thrown in for good measure. The artwork is mahogany with some aluminum leaf. The ceiling in the sanctuary is this dramatic criss-cross of beams and vertical supports. Honestly? There was too much wood and I thought all the beams in the sanctuary ceiling didn't really make structural sense. Meaningless structure. I'm trying to remember the term the prof in Eugene used to tell me my structure was overdone in Fall term. Gratuitous structure or something like that. The same would apply here. The architect had told us that it was designed using traditional Finnish structures but I sort of doubt it. Traditional architecture is very smart about structure, they understood wood and construction was difficult enough that they didn't waste it on extra beams. They wasted it on gingerbread trim instead! :^)

Anyhow, here are photos, you can judge for yourself. This is the stuff you come to Finland to see...

Visit to Hvittrask

Today we visited Hvittrask, the home of Eliel Saarinen around 1900. Saarinen was the designer of the Helsinki Railway station with the great men standing in front of it holding the lighted orbs. He designed a number of other buildings and homes around Finland, as well as teaching and designing the buildings at Cranbrook Arts Academy in Michigan. His son was a famous architect in the US, and designed the St Louis Arch.

Hvittrask was actually designed to be the home of three architects working together, Saarinen along with Herman Gesellius and Armas Lindgren. Saarinen seems like he was a pretty fun guy. With a liking for Scottish Whiskey, he put cast iron "Whiskey Rings" in his living room. The idea was that if you could still stand up, while holding onto one of the rings for support if need be, you could continue drinking.

There is also a rather beautiful stained glass window in the dining area depicting the story of Saarinen, Gesellius, and Saarinen's first wife Mathilda. Mathilda, married to Saarinen, fell in love with Geseillus. Saarinen falls for Geseillus' sister Loja. The various couples remarry the correct persons and continue to live and work together. Lindgren exits. Geseillus dies of Tuberculosis and Mathilda moves to the south of France.

The house and grounds were lovely, however. And it was a great day for a 25 km bike ride out there. We even got some work in during the afternoon. Those people do look like they are working don't they?

More Hvittrask photos here.

Biking to Dragsfjord

Over the past weekend I took the Bike Friday on a three day trip west of Turku. The idea was to get out to the "Finnish Archipelago", a famous area for biking and sailing. After discussing plans with some of the Finns at Kiljava last week, I decided to head for the island of Rosalo, a bit more isolated but with a lot of Viking history. The weekend was a lesson in coping on the road, however, as nothing quite worked out as planned.

On Saturday morning I rode to the train station in Espoo, but after getting to the wrong station initially, arrived at the right one a few minutes late for the train I'd intended to catch. And the next train had no spaces available for bikes. But it was an hour and a half away, so I found a quiet corner and packed the bike into it's suitcase and, wallah! No more bike.

After arriving in Turku I reassembled the bike and rode through some lovely country to Dragsfjord. This was about 80 kilometers. I was pretty tired from riding into the wind and hauling the trailer. Found a nice pension to stay there from the Lonely Planet guide. Too late to get dinner, but I finished eating some snacks and fruit I'd bought along the way.

The next morning I headed for Kasnas, a small resort and the ferry for Rosalo. One of the maps I had seen showed a ferry from Kasnas back to Turku, I figured I could take that back the next day as I had to be back in Helsinki on Tuesday morning. In Turku, to avoid having to pack the bike again on the way home, I bought a train ticket back for 4:00 pm Monday. Rather than following the two lane highway, I decided to follow a "recommended bike route" marked on the tourist map I had. It turned out that the "recommended bike route" included some 8 km of gravel. When I had gotten through that and back on a paved road, I could not find the next portion of the "recommended route" and instead took the paved road back to very nearly where I had started the morning. 16 km of exhausting biking with the trailer on a gravel road and nothing to show for it. It was already 1 or 2 o'clock. I finally got on the main road and headed again for Kasnas, arriving around 4:00, completely bonking. Not enough food and too much exercise.

By now it was too late and I was too worn out to go on out to Rosalo. Instead I stayed over at the little resort. Which was very nice. I also found that there was no ferry back to Turku, so my options were to ride back 100 km or throw my bike onto the bus. I decided to get up early and get rolling, just see how well I did. If I needed to, I could pick up a bus later in the day. Had an excellent dinner at the restaurant and by the morning was feeling much better and ready to go. But when I headed down for breakfast at 6:00, it turned out that they didn't start serving until 7:30! Furthermore, the front desk didn't open until 7:30 and I couldn't leave until I paid my bill! Okay, whatever. I wait, eat breakfast, pay bill, dink around a little, finally get on the road around 8:00.

The ride back was terrific though. I now had, if not a tailwind at least not a headwind. There were sprinkles but no real rain. I even stopped for 45 minutes over lunch at Kemios to visit an outdoor historic museum called Sagalund. I had not expected to be able to do this because it didn't open until 11:00. But because I'd gotten such a late start it worked out that I could. After Kemios I continued but at some point discovered I had a broken spoke in my rear wheel. Fortunately it had just made the wheel wobbly, but still ridable. I rolled into Turku just 10 minutes ahead of the train. And 5 minutes ahead of the downpour that was following me. Train back to Espoo, bike back to apartment. Done!!

More Photos Here!

Back from the Sauna

We spent last week at an Architecture "retreat" site on Kiljava lake about 40 km north of Helsinki. This was a large wooded area on a beautiful, shallow, spring fed lake. The land was donated to SAFA (the Finnish and Swedish version of the American AIA) around the time of WWII. Land was available for architects to build very small summer cabins on and a main building, with water and a shower, constructed where a number of people could gather and stay. The cabins had to be less than 45 square meters in size, basically a medium sized apartment in Helsinki and a small one in the US. They have no running water. But the point was to come and stay and socialize in the saunas with other architects. The cabins could be passed down through the family, but only to children who were also members of SAFA. So if you kid became something less than an architect... like the CEO of some big company or something, they had to go out and buy their own summer home somewhere else. If the cabin reverted into SAFA hands it became available for rent to architects.

We split into groups and each was assigned a sauna house to measure and draw images of. Our sauna was an old log cabin on the opposite side of the lake. It was a traditional "smoke sauna". These saunas had no chimney. You build a fire in the stove, it fills with smoke and heat, and about six hours later your return and open it up, let the smoke out, and do your saunaing. Remember that the houses on the lake didn't have running water so saunas are both an important part of bathing and socializing there. The saunas smell like birch wood. There are specific ways of heating them up, some people start with one sort of wood and then finish heating with a different one depending on how the wood burns.

So you come in the evening, it is dark inside this low log cabin. There is a changing room to take off your clothing, you sit in the sauna room on wooden slated benches up near the ceiling. There is a window to the side with a small oil lantern hanging outside, spreading a dim light into the room. The stove is covered with a layer of rocks and you throw ladles of water onto them to create steam and further heat the space to the desired temperature. Which is *very* hot! There will also be a water bucket and a bundle of birch branches tied at the base. Freshly cut branches with leaves still on them. You wack yourself all over with the birch branches to increase the circulation at the skin. When you are ready to leave, you walk out the door, down to the dock, and jump into the lake. The lake is only about 4 feet deep here and pretty cold. Very fresh clean water at Kiljava. I found the best way to get in was just to do a flat dive out into the lake. Putting one toe in at a time didn't work.

After a few minutes in the lake the water becomes tolerable again. You hang out there or climb out on the dock and sit and watch the twilight because it is summertime and the sun doesn't really go down until midnight (a month ago it was still light at 1 or 2 am). And then you go back in and do it all again! I have to say, it never got any easier to jump into the lake afterward!

More Photos Here!