Directions article, 2004
HELSINKI. STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS.
As a country, Finland forged itself through design. Now its picturesque capital is the seat of a national renaissance of young talent.
Apparently it’s news: Helsinki is a design destination. Government and professional agencies began issuing that message last summer, when a swath of downtown was anointed the Design District and Helsinki Design Week was inaugurated. The International Herald Tribune, the Guardian, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have heralded the arrival of the capital city on the international style scene. But it is somewhat ironic that people are suddenly recognizing Helsinki as a creative epicenter, because Finland has long been one of the world’s most design-savvy cultures.
As soon as you arrive, it is clear the city was created with a bit more care than most. Even the serene airport, with its lush wood floors and expansive glass windows, feels like an observatory for taking in miles of surrounding pine forest. In town, welcoming easily accessible trams and buses use a wireless system that gives them priority at traffic signals. The richly textured streets are lined with a harmonious mix of crisp glass and the gelato shades of historic Neoclassical and Art Nouveau architecture. Even the average bathroom fixture is a relative work of art. “You can tell a lot about a city just by looking at door handles,” native architect Juhani Pallasmaa has said revealingly.
This contemporary reality began to emerge as the nation forged its independence in the early 20th century. While the country struggled to define itself outside the context of Russian influence (and Swedish before that), architects like Eliel Saarinen strove to create a physical identity for Finland. The style of the Helsinki Central railway station, the Finnish National Museum, and other buildings of the era became known as national romanticism. Hvritträsk—the lakeside artistic compound about 30 minutes west of Helsinki where Saarinen and partners Herman Gesellius and Armas Lindgren lived and designed most of these structures—is now a popular museum and cafe.
Finland later came to international attention through its expressive brand of modernism—buildings and products that seemed to have materialized from the nation’s very rocks, lakes, and forests. Alvar Aalto, the most famous practitioner of Finnish modernism, created arctic-white buildings and warm bentwood furniture. But Tapio Wirkkala’s elemental glass-and-wood tableware, Maija Isola’s pop organic textiles for Marimekko, and other products also played a key role in Finland’s association with its peninsular neighbors, rather than its Baltic ones, since Finnish designs were exhibited abroad alongside those from Scandinavia in the 1950s. Artek, Arabia, Iittala, Hackman, and Marimekko are still well-known today.
Signs of street life
As the center of the country’s economic activity and home to one of Europe’s finest design schools, Helsinki has always been at the core of Finnish design. But it is true that something has changed. There’s a new energy in the streets. Young designers’ work spills from shops and galleries throughout the city center, and for the most part it hasn’t been produced by Finland’s venerable manufacturers. In fact, the designers make much of it themselves. This is because, although it’s common to see Kaj Frank glasses and Hackman cutlery on the average table, the design industry in Finland froze up for a while. “In the ’50s and ’60s the guys that who made it big became professors and influenced a whole generation,” says Brian Keaney, an Irish import who founded Tonfisk Design with Tony Alfström in 1999. “The negative side was that they did things a certain way, and that only died out at the beginning of the ’90s when a new generation came into being.”
Faced with the fact that Finland’s limited pool of elite manufacturers was going with bigger international names, this young generation began producing and marketing its own goods. “A lot of the people that I know just go and do stuff to see what happens,” Keaney says. “I don’t see any other options.” This approach probably likely dates to 1997, when designers such as Ilka Suppanen and Timo Salli exhibited their prototypes at Milan’s Salone del Mobile furniture fair, in Milan, effectively launching the now defunct collective Snowcrash. Its conceptual bent and formally explorative work was a departure from the rigorous functionalism that still represents the stereotype of Finnish design.
Although Snowcrash has disbanded, it has had a tangible impact on Helsinki’s design culture. For example, in 2002 Elina Aalto, Krista Kosonen, and Saara Renvall formed a loose collective operating under the name IMU (“Finland’s self-appointed National Design Team”) in 2002 to help market young designers through international exhibitions. Though more established designers independently curate the represented projects, IMU’s playful logo—a polar bear wearing a crown, based on two common misconceptions about Finland—is a clue to the work’s spirit. And after three years of “Finnish design PR work,” the non-profit has grander plans. “We believe that design is not design until it reaches the consumer, so we have been writing a business plan for our own company that would produce, market, and sell our designs,” Renvall says. “In five years we hope to be operating internationally. We want to spread Finnish design where it is needed–everywhere!” Another group, Anteeksi, is harder to pin down, having done only one commission involving all 13 members (they usually work separately). While these architects, illustrators, and industrial, graphic, landscape, and fashion designers came together primarily to split the rent at their studio in the now -trendy Kallio district, they also exercise their creative instincts by staging events, such as a fashion show held on the studio fire escape. And in a delicious twist on the annual spring pilgrimage to Milan, they now stage Milari, a Helsinki-based riff on the furniture fair, which is installed in a large glass case on a street near the studio.
Independent production
Others are more interested in making their designs than finding someone else to. Tonfisk casts its own ceramic tableware; the overhead from which makes the pieces somewhat expensive (a set of Warm tea cups sells for around €96 euros), but the company emphasizes their quality along with their Finnish manufacture. IVANAhelsinki has taken a similar tack, making all of garments in a Helsinki factory and underscoring this “ethical production” in their promotional literature. “We feel that since we are talking about a design-driven brand, we have to be responsible for production,” says Pirjo Suhonen, who founded the company with her sister Paola, the designer. “We know the people who produce these things. A lot of big brands use the same factory in Asia. We have the small details that make a difference. Also there are a growing number of consumers who want to know that they haven’t contributed to someone getting ten cents an hour.”
Evidence suggests there is indeed a market for such goods, with more than 100 outlets cropping up in the Design District alone. Uudenmankatu, arguably the district’s spine, is full of boutiques—many operated by the designers themselves—and dozens more dot the surrounding blocks. IVANAhelsinki, Lux, Liike, Hundpark, and Asuna are just a few of the noteworthy fashion purveyors, while Aero, Grayscale and Aste 90 focus on furnishings and accessories.
A new era
This abundance of talent has been met with official response in the form of a cultural mandate to advance Finnish design domestically and abroad. Last year was designated “Design Year” in celebration of a government policy aimed at improving the economic competitiveness of Finnish industry through design. This year, the promotional agency Design Forum Finland initiated an international marketing campaign to embed design in the national image by 2010. One of its first projects is the Finnish Design Yearbook 2006, an overview of the work happening today.
Plenty of other signs indicate that a new epoch is underway. Helsinki has recently seen the opening of its first boutique hotel—Klaus K—and many stylish new bars and restaurants. Chez Dominique, Demo, and Mecca now serve as aesthetic and gastronomic competition for Aalto’s pre-eminent Savoy. Anteeksi has refreshingly re-designed the well-trafficked Helsinki Club. And Artek, famous for producing Aalto’s furniture, is celebrating its 70th anniversary by introducing new pieces, including a chair by the country’s most famous young designer, Harri Koskinen. So it’s a good time to be a designer in Helsinki. “I think people have more courage,” Renvall says. “Other small ‘Imus’ and small companies are coming up. There is room for all different kinds of design; I don’t think this was the case in the old days.” And making the case that the city truly is a new design destination she adds, “The whole scene is more active now.”