| Brief Guide to the top ten things to do in Helsinki |
| 1. Senate Square and Market Square |
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Helsinki was founded in 1550 as a Swedish trading post, and it was not until 1812 - after the Russian annexation of Finland in 1809 - that it became the capital (replacing Turku). It then started to acquire a stately grandeur, largely in the hands of Carl Ludwig Engel (1778-1840), a German architect appointed by the Russian Tsar. Engel, who had worked in Tallinn and St Petersburg, now brought his refined neoclassical and neo-Byzantine - essentially Russian - 'Empire' style to the city.
Much of the old elegance of Helsinki was destroyed by Soviet bombing during the Second World War, but it can still be seen in and around the Senate Square (Senaatintori), which is traditionally considered to be the city centre. The dominant building in the square, at the summit of a broad and grand flight of steps, is the shining-white Lutheran Cathedral (Tuomiokirkko; also known as Suurkirkko or St Nicholas' Church), designed by Engel and completed in 1852. The four symmetrical, Greek-temple façades are surmounted by the twelve Apostles, gazing down from the pediments, beneath the green Byzantine domes. The interior is cool, elegant and pristine. The other major buildings in the square are the Government Palace (built 1818-22) and the University (1832-45), both also designed by Engel. In the middle of the square is a statue of Alexander II, Tsar of Russia and Grand Duke of Finland; this was erected in 1894, twenty-three years before the Russian Revolution of 1917 - shortly after which Finland won its independence. To the west of the Senate Square are Helsinki's main shopping streets, Aleksanterinkatu and the two parallel streets called the Esplanadi: Pohjoisesplanadi (north) and Eteläesplanadi (south). Further south lies this waterbound city's main harbour (Eteläsatama), which is fronted by the Market Square (Kauppatori), otherwise known as the 'fish market'. The daily market does indeed sell fish, but there are also many other colourful stalls, and a covered market, selling fruit and vegetables and Finnish specialist food products, plus local crafts and souvenirs. This is also an excellent place to pick up a snack lunch of fish soup or fresh grilled salmon, or a dish of reindeer meat. The bronze Art-Nouveau statue of a female nude, atop a fountain to the west of the fish market, is by the Finnish sculptor Ville Vallgren (1855-1940). It depicts a mermaid and is known as Havis Amanda (or Manta). Although highly controversial at its inauguration in 1908, it has become an icon of the city. |
| 2. Ateneum Art Museum |
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This is Finland's premier art collection, founded in 1887, with a good collection of European paintings, mainly mid-19th-century to 1960. Foreign artists include Van Gogh, Munch, Bonnard, Cézanne, Chagall, Modigliani, Degas and Gauguin. But more notable still is the museum's collection of work by Finnish artists of the late 19th and early 20th century. Among these are evocative landscapes and Symbolist paintings, many of them deeply patriotic in tone (from the run-up to independence) and often inspired by the great Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. Look out in particular for work by two of the most famous Finnish painters, Albert Edelfelt (1854-1905) and Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931), and the sculpture of Wäinö Aaltonen (1894-1966).
www.ateneum.fi |
| 3. Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art |
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There is an exhilarating zest to Kiasma, which is evident from first sight of its radical building. Designed by the American architect Steven Holl and inaugurated in 1998, it is a startling complex of curving, angular and beautifully engineered sheets of zinc, aluminium, brass and glass. Inside, the 25 galleries curve and intertwine, all lit by natural light. The permanent collection includes a number of works by international artists, such as Max Ernst, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, R.B. Kitaj, Cindy Sherman, Richard Serra, Francesco Clemente, Carl Andre, and so on. But this is really, above all, a showcase for contemporary Finnish artists, with cutting-edge work by Elija-Liisa Ahtila, Robert Lucander, Nina Roos and many others. Outside, close to the main entrance is an equestrian statue of Marshal Mannerheim (1867-1951), erected in 1960. Mannerheim is considered a great hero by many Finns for steering his country through the bloody civil war that followed independence, and again through the Second World War (fighting against the Soviet Union); he served as Finland's president from 1944 to 1946.
www.kiasma.fi |
| 4. Design Museum |
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Finland had a major influence on international design in the 20th century - a fact celebrated by Helsinki's 'Designmuseo' in 35,000 objects, 40,000 drawings and 100,000 images. The collection was in fact founded back in 1873 as study-aid for an arts-and-crafts school; its current building was built in 1894, but the museum has only been here since 1978. Exhibits include a fascinating array of chairs, lamps, glassware, cutlery and many other facets of commercial design, with special prominence given to leading Finnish figures in the field, such as Kaj Franck (1911-89), Timo Sarpaneva (born 1926), and Finland's most celebrated 20th-century architect and designer Alvar Aalto (1898-1976); he and his wife Aino (1894-1949) were co-founders of the famous glassware and furniture manufacturers Artek.
www.designmuseum.fi |
| 5. Temppeliaukio Church |
| Otherwise aptly known as the Church in the Rock, this is an astonishing construction. In the 1960s a round hole was scoured out of Helsinki's bedrock, rimmed with a rough wall made of the quarried stone, then covered by a glass and copper dome. The walls of the interior have been left as raw rock and stone, to powerful and moving effect. Designed by brothers Tino and Tuomo Soumalainen, the church was completed in 1969. The acoustics are exceptional, and so it is often used as a venue for concerts. The semi-concealed entrance is to the west of the building. |
| 6. National Museum of Finland |
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The National Museum of Finland (Suomen Kansallismuseo) opened its doors in 1916, shortly before independence. Its mission was to exhibit, explain, and celebrate the history of the country, a task that it has continued to serve ever since. Somewhat old-fashioned and random in its presentation, it is nonetheless an excellent place to learn about great and often traumatic events that have shaped modern Finland, and also to see - through clothing, furniture, toys, printed material and archive film - how life for ordinary Finns has changed over time. The museum building was designed in romantic, historic style by a partnership that included Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950), and was completed in 1910. Eliel Saarinen also designed the remarkable Helsinki Central Railway Station, which was completed in 1919, foreshadowing Art Deco. In 1923 he went to the USA, where his son Eero Saarinen (1910-61) went on to become one of the leading architects of the International Style. The National Museum also stands close to another celebrated piece of modern architecture: the Finlandia Hall (1971), the congress and concert hall designed by Alvar Aaalto.
www.nba.fi www.finlandia.hel.fi (Finlandia Hall) |
| 7. Sinebrychoff Museum of Foreign Art |
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The Sinebrychoff family were descendants of a Russian merchant who made his fortune in Helsinki in the 1840s. In the late 19th century Paul Sinebrychoff, a brewer, and his wife Fanny began collecting European antiques and art dating as far back as the 14th century - paintings, glassware, porcelain, silver, furniture, clocks. They then bequeathed the collection, and their home, to the nation in 1921, and it became a museum. Swelled by some 20 other bequests, the museum has since become the main repository for Finland's national collection of Old Masters (Rembrandt, Tiepolo, Watteau and others). Overall, the collection may be somewhat hit-and-miss, but there's plenty of treasure here, including the museum's most cherished possession, the 'Portrait of a Young Lady' by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553). Several of the rooms have been restored to how they would have looked in 1910 - richly furnished in historical styles.
www.sinebrychoffintaidemuseo.fi |
| 8. Suomenlinna Fortress |
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Helsinki is surrounded by the islands of its archipelago, and pleasant summer days can be spent on the ferries and excursion boats that run between them (mostly leaving from the Market Square). One favourite excursion goes to Suomenlinna ('Castle of Finland'), a vast fortress that sprawls across a cluster of eight small islands to the south-east of Helsinki, at the end of a 15-minute ferry-boat journey. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Suomenlinna was the largest military installation built by the Swedes to protect their eastern empire from the Russians. Dating from the 1740s, it had Vauban-style, star-shaped ramparts among its 8km (5 miles) of walls, plus a huge shipyard, barracks and arsenals. Its military record, however, was less than glorious: when first under threat in 1808, it quickly capitulated, and Finland fell to the Russians. This history has however meant that Suomenlinna is largely intact. It is more than just a fortress: it has several military museums, plus restaurants and cafés, and is a popular picnicking spot. It is also a residential area with 900 inhabitants, with a still-active shipyard, an artists' colony, and an entertainment centre famed for its avant-garde theatre and concerts.
www.suomenlinna.fi |
| 9. Seurasaari Open-air Museum |
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Seurasaari is an island to the west of Helsinki, accessible by road and boat. Its open-air museum began as early as 1909, when the first of its rescued traditional buildings from all over Finland were re-erected here. There are now 87 buildings on the site - including cottages, manor houses, farmsteads, windmills and a watermill, a smithy, a wooden church and a parsonage. The buildings are open during the summer months, when costumed museum staff demonstrate old crafts and folk-dancing. The charming, wooded parkland, threaded with walking trails, is open all year round.
www.nba.fi/en/seurasaari_openairmuseum |
| 10. Sauna |
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Finland is the original home of the sauna (here pronounced 'sow-na'). This is very much a part of Finnish life: in fact, there are 2 million saunas in Finland, where the total population is just over 5 million. Ideally, this kind of intense steam-bath should be enjoyed in a little wooden hut by a frozen lake or coastal inlet, where stones are heated by logs of aspen wood, and those taking part can invigorate their naked bodies with a leafy birch-twig whisk before plunging into the water outside through a hole in the ice. The ideal may be beyond your grasp, but you can still indulge in the sauna experience in more formal surrounds in Helsinki. Among the more famous public saunas in the city are the traditional-style Kotiharjun, and the luxurious art-deco Yrjönkatu Swimming Hall. The dress-code is usually naked, but sessions at the public baths are single-sex.
www.aatos.fi/sauna (Kotiharjun; website in Finnish only) www.hel2.fi/liv/eng/yrjonkatu.html www.sauna.fi (Finnish Sauna Society) |
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