Tag Archives: Helsinki

Helsinki Design Museum

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Past and present are comfortable together in Helsinki. The Helsinki Design Museum occupies a neo-Gothic building designed by Gustaf Nystrom in 1894.


Inside, it’s the liveliest and most forward-looking museum I saw in Helsinki.


It’s all about beauty and color…


and form and function.


This intriguing outfit was part of an artist’s MFA project.


A Finnish necklace, designed by Bjorn Weckstrom in 1977, adorned Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in the final triumphant scene of  “Star Wars.” (May the Force still be with her).

Finnish design is more than fashion, though. Finns are a practical lot whose work has found its way into all our lives.


Doesn’t everyone own at least one pair of orange-handled Fiskars?


Nokia’ first cell phone was about the size of a lunchbox. But the design kept getting smaller and better.


I especially liked a display by designers working on solving the problems so many women across the world face: giving birth in less-than-ideal conditions.


Designers have come up with portable, easily manufactured childbirth beds and chairs.


How about a portable shower stall?


Worn out from admiring all that fine design? Take a break in Eero Aarnio’s iconic Bubble Chair, a classic since the day he invented it in 1968! After a bit of a rest, head out to enjoy more of Helsinki.

Join me next time for more explorations in the art, from ancient to contemporary, of Europe, Scandinavia and the British Isles.

Easter Time in Helsinki

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Helsinki in early April is chilly and blustery.  All the children are bundled up in one-piece snow suits. I was wishing I had one! Finland is not a place for religious pageantry and parades as in Southern Europe.


The Lutheran Helsinki Cathedral is impressive in its grand spaces, but very austere. Aside from Martin Luther gazing skyward, there’s not much to look at. And (at least on an admittedly quick stop) I didn’t see a children’s corner with little chairs, or posters about bake sales, or ladies dusting things, or a single clergy person.


The National Museum of Finland was a much more church-like experience. This pulpit is from the church in Parainen, Finland, dated 1650. At the time, Finland was a frontier to the west of Sweden–and very handy as a buffer between Sweden and Russia. Newly built churches were required to have pulpits. Lutheranism was the state religion of Sweden, and everybody was expected to sit still for it or else.


This pulpit is from the Kalvia Church, around 1726.  I like the cloudy heavens painted on its ceiling just above the preacher’s head.


Wait, there are hourglasses? Four of them? How long is this sermon going to be, anyway? Better not ask.


My favorite item was an altarpiece depicting the Last Supper. It’s from the Ylane Church, dated around 1675.


The faces are friendly and everyone is having a nice time together. There seem to be only 11 apostles. Apparently Judas has already left the building.


Jesus (with spiky sun-ray halo) seems to be holding a child in his lap. So the story is maybe doing double duty here: “Let the little children come unto me.”

The museum also had wonderful religious wood carvings dating back as far as the 1200s. I liked St. Martin on his horse, about to share his warm cloak with a beggar. He was carved and assembled from several pieces of wood around 1320.


I gazed for awhile at the Archangel Gabriel, carved and gilded around 1500.


Then I was back on the friendly but chilly streets of Helsinki, wishing I had a striped snowsuit and a red polka-dotted hat with flower ears.

Jugendstil in Helsinki

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The island of Katajanokka, just outside the center of Helsinki, might have more Jugendstil buildings per square mile than anyplace else on earth.


It seems that in the early 1900s, when industrialization was drawing rural Finns into Helsinki, there must have been a building boom.


Builders must have raced to create castles for the common people: fanciful and beautiful apartment buildings with turrets, towers, interesting windows, and beautiful decorative elements.


We stayed in one of them, and I’d have cheerfully stayed longer. I could see myself living in beautiful, friendly Helsinki. The city is known for its style. Now I see why!

Helsinki Jugendstil Doorways

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For some reason, I expected Helsinki to be a  rough-around-the edges modern industrial city. Instead I found a city full of delightful architecture, much of it dating from the early 1900s. This was the heyday of the worldwide Jugendstil or Art Nouveau movement.


I’m stopping constantly to snap a picture of yet another inviting, witty doorway. I’m loving Helsinki!