June 30, Wednesday

Today was a great day! We woke up, saw some Alto and then had some flexible time this afternoon. It was really nice not to feel obligated to be anywhere.

Here is a picture of some people!! I've noticed that I haven't been taking any pictures with people in them (I always wait for people to move so I can get the pretty shot). This is a good example of what we do all day. Here we are in Alto's studio, everyone is scattered about the room sketching. We normally will sketch at least 30 minutes to an hour in each place we visit. It's a good forced activity, and it passes the time quickly.

Greg reminded me today that I haven't been adding any comments on what else we have been up to besides architecture! The real answer is not too much besides eating, sleeping and watching the World Cup. The food here is not to die for, so that's why you haven't heard much about it. I'm excited to be able to make my own soon. As I mentioned before though, today was a nice day. It was our last night in Helsinki, so Ji, Aileen, Helen and I decided to set a meeting time for dinner at the 'Chocolate Factory' (I have no idea what the real name is). No one really has cell phones, which has been really fun, so it felt very old fashion to be meeting up for dinner! The Chocolate Factory has a nice cafe and chocolate, of course. We had a nice, leisurely dinner and then some ice cream to top it off! Most of the restaurants have outdoor patios to eat on, and it is great people watching. There are some interesting fashions in Finland!! I also spent part of my afternoon shopping and looking at all the fashion, they sell very different things than Seattle does.

Our hostel is in walking distance of the downtown area, so we decided to walk back after our dinner. The lighting is amazing here, it is so bright and the sun doesn't set until about 11 PM.  I haven't seen darkness for awhile.

Helsinki has been really fun, but I'm excited to get to Stockholm. We take the overnight ferry there tomorrow!! I think the ferry will be an interesting experience. Apparently duty free stuff is all around you! So, I guess my next update will be from Stockholm!


Here are a few pictures from today:

The first is of the new development of the old cable factory and the second is inside the Kiasma, a Steven Holl museum.

June 29, Tuesday

Today was another Alto day! We saw the National Pensions Institute and the Alvar Alto University.

The Institute was my favorite project of the day. It was a really well designed office building, with many attractive features for workers. I would want to work there! One of the coolest bits was their passenger elevator. It moves continuously, and people hop on as the opening comes by and get off by just walking off!! The exterior space for lunch and bringing light into the building was also really nice, all very much designed for people to use.

The University was a really large project, so we spent our entire afternoon there. I was pretty tired by the end, so I might not have gotten as much out of it as I could have.  My favorite building we saw was the Sports Hall. It was an amazing wood structure with huge beams spanning a really long distance (It kind of reminded me of Whitworth's gym, but huge and wood).


This image is of one of Alto's most famous auditoriums. There is no direct light in any part of the space, but the quality of light is amazing.

Tomorrow we have more Alto!

June 28, Monday

Yay! I'm finally caught up with the days.

Today we had our first walking day in Helsinki.We have bus passes for the next three days to get around on public transportation (which will include buses, trains, trams, and a ferry)! It's fun to see the city this way.

We started with another church this morning, Myyrmaki Church by Leiviska. My favorite part of this church was the lights hung in the chapel area. It was mid-morning and they felt like stars glittering in a nights sky.The story of the form of this church has to do with the city meeting the forest, and I think it is successful. It was very beautiful.

This is a sketch of the outside of the building as you approach.

After lunch at a great little cafe, we went on to the House of Culture by Alto. It's not a huge venue, but even Jimmy Hendrix has played there! I really liked the lobby. I took the opportunity to do some quick sketching here.

As we walked back towards the center of town we made a few stops. This building is the Church of the Rock, and has quite a cool factor. It's a planned safety shelter turned into a church!


I'm going to bed now for some good rest!!

June 25 - 27, Friday - Sunday

Friday was Midsummer!! This is a big deal in Finland (and all over Scandinavia). They celebrate it like it's New Years. They always have a party Friday night, and no one works on Saturday! We arrived at a very remote and cool little hostel in Kaartilankoski. It really felt like summer camp. It was way out in the woods, set on a lake!! The best part of the whole experience was getting to use the sauna. Fins all have saunas, and they use them daily for bathing and relaxing.



Our sauna!

We were in the eastern part of Finland for this excurtion (close to Russia) where there is almost as much water as land. It was really beautiful driving around and seeing the country. Here is a map of our journey through Finland.
While we got to enjoy the sauna and lake, we also still had to see some architecture. We visited Savonlinna, the Lusto Forestry Museum, and Vuoksenniska Church by Alto.

The Forestry Museum was pretty interesting. They had a collection of chainsaws and tractors (Dad, you would have liked it!). They used a lot of wood, and in very interesting ways. They also hold the title of my favorite bathroom so far, but I never got a good picture of it (it will only live in my mind)!

Vuoksenniska Church (Church of Three Crosses) was next, and the last building of the weekend. There were very few straight curves in the building. It's amazing to think of the time put in to draw the plans and details of the building without the computer!

Here are a few of my sketches from visiting the building.

June 24, Thursday

Today we visit Saynatsalo Town Hall, Jyvaskla University, and the Alto museum. All buildings by or about Alvar Alto (there are starting to be jokes about only being able to go a few hours without seeing an Alto building). He's really like a God in this country.

Saynatsalo Town Hall is one of his most famous works, and one I was very excited to see! The project was smaller than I had imagined it, but still very nice.  The lighting brought through to the inside was my favorite part, as well as the little library (which is to the right in this picture).





Included in his total works of art are his door handles (they are like a signature on each building). Here is a door handle from the inside and my sketch of it!









 Jyvaskla University had quite a few Alto buildings, but I was getting tired at this point and stopped sketching for the day :)  I took pictures though! Here are my classmates ascending a famous staircase at the University. Alto is one to make you do things with his architecture, and here you have to go up to and then go back down before you enter the main campus.

 Our last stop of the day was at the Alto museum (which he built for himself!). These are just a few of the chairs he designed over his career. They are all very comfortable! I've been sitting in every one of his chairs I've had an opportunity to sit it!

June 23, Wednesday

This was our longest driving day, but also my favorite stop day so far!!

We visited the Villa Mairea by Alvar Alto. It is a summer home for a family he was close to, so the design process was very collaborative. They family is ridiculously well off, and also has a personal collection of Picasso, Calder, and countless others. Seeing the artwork(some which I had never seen before) in a homey setting was part of what made the experience so great. The family that owns the house still uses it as a vacation home, and are so generous with letting groups come in and see it. Jen (our instructor) knows one of the family members, and she had some pastries and juice set up for us by the pool. It was all pretty surreal!




I'll leave you with some photos of this gem!!

June 22, Tuesday

We stayed in Turku another day/night to see more and hang out in the city a bit. It is a really cute town with a central river running through it flanked by wide walkways. It was very European feeling (almost like France).  I say that only because Scandinavia has a different flavor than the rest of Europe...they eat a lot of rye bread and cheese (and things that come in jars). 

We visited three churches this day (2 burial chapels, 1 not).  The first was the Ressurection Chapel by Erik Bryggman. It was my favorite of the three. I'm not a huge fan of churches, so I tried to get behind the story of this one and really look at the architecture. There were some very interesting details in how the materials moved right from outside to inside, then you step down (death) and back up to go outside (heaven).  The Scandinavain people have a significant tie to nature, and it really shows through in their work.




The second church was the Church of the Holy Cross by Pitkanen. It was opposite in feeling to the first one.  It was very stark and kind of creepy, but the room was beautiful in itself.

The third church was St. Henry's Ecumenical Chapel. It was built with traditional techniques and made to look like the bottom of a boat. The quality of the inside light is amazing because of the wood. 

June 21, Monday

We took our giant bus to Turku, and along the way stopped at Hvittrask and the Paimio Sanatorium (the first of many Alvar Alto buildings we are seeing).

Hvittrask was a house designed for and by Hesellius, Lindgren and Saarinen (3 really famous Finnish architects). Many of the architects I will come across are kind of "out there" types of people with high hopes and strong beliefs.  These guys thought it was a good idea to live and work in the same space, and two of them ended up exchanging wives! This picture is of the exterior of the Saarinen house.

Paimio Sanatorium was designed by Alvar Alto in 1928. He is one of the architects I was most excited about in coming on this trip. He puts great effort into the human experience of someone using the space, and designs every detail of the building down to the gavel that is used in a courtroom (he actually did that). The Sanatorium was designed for people with tuberculosis. At the time it was thought that fresh air and being away from the city could cure them. 

part two - FINLAND

Things have really been flying since we met up with the group. It's been harder to have time to sit and write/time for myself...I feel like I'm back on soccer road trips. The group is really fun, and I've been enjoying getting to know everyone better, including our professors. We are seeing amazing buildings everyday...I can't imagine remembering it all.

I think I'm going to separate the days as posts, and write about what we see each day (feel free to skim).  The Finnish language is the strangest language I have ever met, so you can make up the sounds in your own mouths and then imagine how I feel trying to talk with people here!

I will also try to photograph some of my sketches so you can see what I spend my time doing while visiting these buildings. 

Oslo

We arrived in Oslo last night and had a lovely dinner with Helen's grandparents (Mormor and Morfar).  We've been so well taken care of this week!  Helen's family has been very generous. We are now staying with her cousin Sigurd. They have a big apartment in the city, and actually have three spare beds for us!

Today we walked around Oslo's downtown area, did some site seeing and shopping (not so much of the site seeing because we will be back to do it).  It's a very pretty city, and not too big.  I think we will take Sigurd out to dinner tonight.

I can't believe this week is coming to a close.  Tomorrow we fly to Helsinki, and have some time there before we meet up with the rest of the group.  Going from 3 people to 26 will be a big change!  It was a good idea to come early and get acclimated without everyone around.

Larvik

This is where Helen's aunt and Rolf live. They have a very beautiful yard (today we get to pick Strawberries)!

Ellen has baked each day! The bread is very good, and very dense, and she's making cinnamon roles for us to take with us to Oslo tonight.

We went to a small town called Helgeroa for dinner last night.  On the way, we toured some of the houses/communities that Rolf (Helen's aunt's man-friend) has built.  He is a well known local architect. These 'little houses', as he calls them, are one of his favorite projects.  He specializes in small residential projects and cabins.  He spoke a lot about how important it is to make the new blend with the old, but not make it look old.  It's amazing, and very obvious, how much pride people take in their homes. I'm so glad we got to see some projects like this because I think the rest of the trip will be a whirlwind of large and famous buildings.

we made it!

After 22 hours of flying and layovers, we finally made it to Larvik, Norway (about 45 minutes south of Oslo on the fjord)!  It is beautiful here, I thought Seattle was green, but the countryside here is nothing like what I've seen before.  The area where Helen's aunt lives is considered the country.  There are many farms and farm houses.  It's amazing to see wheat fields that flow right up to the fjord.  In many ways, it reminds me of Walla Walla, but much more green!  I will take pictures when we walk today.

It was amazing to go to bed at 9 PM last night, and the sun was still out!

My traveling companions, Helen (left) and Jocelyn (right)











Here is our very small plane that took us to Oslo (Sandefjord)...me ready to go to bed

trip - part one

We're off to Scandinavia!


Helen, Jocelyn and I are travelling together for this first week.  We will be in Larvik, Norway staying with her aunt and visiting other family members!


Hopefully I can sleep on the plane.


I will try to keep up with the posts as often as possible!