janneleivo

By janne

Spring time, almost.

Past days I have been home with a sore throat and I have made something useful by sitting at home. I want to learn more about the architecture in downtown Helsinki. The city center is interesting by the way it is a mixture of old and new buildings. One thing is the same, the hight is same all over, but the mixture is very radical. One reason is off course that after the second world war Helsinki wanted a different look into the street image. So we have a lot of same kind of buildings that were built in the beginning of the 60s.

This one is from Pursimiehenkatu, and the building on the left-hand side was built in 1890 by architect Selim A. Lindqvist. He was represented art nouveau and worked in the famous Kiseleff bureau. He made a huge contribution in shaping the downtown Helsinki area.

House on the right is by Bertel Saarnio, and all of his houses are from the beginning of the 1960s. The house behind is also his. It represent what I would call archetypical 60s building in Helsinki. We have a lot of same style houses. One reason is the bombings of second world war. The other reason is the greedy building developers of the 60s who purchased valuable real estates and made profit-making line of business.

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