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Architecture

Architecture in Helsinki

Finland gave one architect enough public commissions to shape a national style, and Helsinki is where most of them stand. What has been added since answers Aalto rather than avoiding him.

• Oodi

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  Completed 2018

  ALA Architects

  The central library, facing the parliament across a square. ALA Architects spanned the whole building on two steel arches, which leaves the ground floor free of columns and open as a public route. The timber-clad underside curves up to the entrance, and the top floor is a single glazed room holding the books. Putting a library opposite the parliament at the same height was the point of the site.

• Kiasma

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  Completed 1998

  Steven Holl

  A museum of contemporary art between the parliament and the station. Steven Holl bent one wing of the building against another so the two curve past each other, which is what the name describes. The galleries are lit through a curved section that pulls the low northern sun in from the roof. It was attacked both for being foreign and for standing near a national monument, and outlasted both arguments.

• Finlandia Hall

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  Completed 1971

  Alvar Aalto

  A concert and congress hall on Töölö Bay, part of a city plan Aalto never completed. Alvar Aalto clad it in Carrara marble and black granite, which the climate then bowed and cracked repeatedly. The auditorium is asymmetric, with the balcony pushed to one side and the ceiling raised over the stage. Its acoustics were criticised from the first season, and it is still where national occasions happen.

• Aalto House

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  Completed 1936

  Alvar Aalto

  The architect's own house and office in Munkkiniemi. Alvar Aalto split it in two, a whitewashed brick studio for the practice and a dark timber-clad wing for the family, joined so the two never quite resolve into one building. The studio is a tall north-lit room with a mezzanine looking down into it. It is where the office worked before the practice moved next door, and the furniture stands where it was placed.

• Helsinki Central Station

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  Completed 1919

  Eliel Saarinen

  The main railway station, won in a competition in 1904. Eliel Saarinen's first entry was national romantic and was attacked so hard by other architects that he redesigned it, replacing carved bears and picturesque towers with a plainer granite mass. Four stone figures holding globe lamps stand at the main door. Finnish architecture turned from romanticism toward what came next inside this one commission.