Lapinlahden sairaala-alue (Lappvikens sjukhusområde)

English translation (from the Finnish)

The text above is the record as published by the Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto), in Finnish. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto); it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

Description

Lapinlahti Hospital is Finland's oldest mental hospital and is among the oldest treatment institutions built for psychiatric care in Europe. The park surrounding the hospital, with its gardens, is an integral part of the hospital's history of patient care and one of Helsinki's important historic parks. More than 160 years of hospital activity have made the area unique in both its cultural history and its vegetation, and have safeguarded the survival of the buildings in their historical form.

Lapinlahti Hospital, built in the 1830s to designs by architect C.L. Engel, lies on the shore of a bay beside Hietaniemi and the Orthodox cemetery. Engel's hospital building comprises a complex designed in the shape of the letter H, whose parts are the central wing and the associated patient and service wings. The courtyard between the eastern wing buildings is enclosed by a masonry wall, in the middle of which is a gate structure formed by a carriage gate and two pedestrian gates. The austere general appearance of the buildings changes on the west façade, where a light gallery corridor links the southern and northern patient wings.

The oldest wooden building in the area is a former painter's and carpenter's workshop, built in 1882 (John Lybeck). The brick service building on the shore, Venetsia, was built in 1895 and 1910.

The Lapinlahti Hospital area is part of a landscape ensemble formed by the associated peaceful view of the bay, the nearby historic cemeteries and the shores of Hietaniemi. In the park, which today is roughly half its former size, the area's original nature and old park culture come together, and thanks to this the park has an exceptionally rich flora. The terrain also contains the foundations of demolished buildings and a fragment of a gun road from the Crimean War, which led to a battery located in the southern part of the peninsula.

History

In 1835, when proposing the siting of the hospital at Lapinlahti, beside the cemetery, the Director-General of the lääkintöhallitus, C.D. von Haartman, and architect C.L. Engel stressed the tranquillity of the site. Because of its suitable location, deep waters and good spring, Lapinniemi offered excellent conditions both for buildings and for the "promenades" the institution needed. The main building of the hospital was placed on the sheltered side of the peninsula, yet so close to the shore that the view to the west and north-west, framed by the patient wings of the building, remained open.

Engel drew up the plans for Lapinlahti Hospital in 1835, and the hospital was completed in 1841. The extensions to the patient wings were completed in their present form to plans by Julius Basilier in July 1877. One of the eastern wing buildings was raised in 1890 according to plans by Th. Granstedt in 1890, and the other in the 1920s. Alterations were made to the patient wing in 1905-1906, and the windows of the patient rooms, which had been reduced to cell-like size after the 1860s, were opened up to their original size in 1906-1908.

J. Ahrenberg and E.A. Kranck designed the thorough renovation of the hospital, which was carried out in 1912-1913. Also in the 1920s and 1930s many repairs, modernisations and reorganisations were carried out in the building, including: the stoves were dismantled in 1925; the church was converted into a polyclinic in 1925; and a lecture hall was built on the site of the horse stable and carriage shed in 1925-1927. The chief physician's residence was converted into hospital premises in 1968.

The park area surrounding the hospital covered the whole of Lapinniemi, a total of about 17.5 hectares. Work to beautify the area began as soon as the hospital was completed, using patient labour. From the outset, the combination of natural landscape, cultivated park, kitchen garden and flower beds was regarded as part of the patients' well-being and recovery. The layout of the park can be considered the result of the guidance of the hospital's first chief physicians, L. Fahlander and A.T. Sælan.

The park became a landscape park typical of the 19th century, a varied whole of open meadows, groups of trees, copses and bare rock outcrops created with earth fill, in which natural vegetation was supplemented with broadleaf plantings. Winding park paths guided walkers from sea-view and resting places to others. The south-western part remained more natural; the share of open meadows, small fields and broadleaf plantings was greater in the central and eastern parts of the park. In the central part of the area was the chief physician's garden.