Kemin ruutukaava-alue ja kirkon ympäristö

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

The surroundings of Kemi church are the only town centre in Lapland Province laid out according to the grid plan ideal of the 19th century, and its town structure, divided into blocks by park streets, has remained clearly legible in the townscape. The early 20th-century church and the school buildings around it, dating from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries to the 1950s, form a significant ensemble of public buildings in the town centre. The residential houses preserved along the park streets and the harbour area of the sailing ship era, with its buildings, reflect town building at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The stone church, standing in the middle of the Kemi grid-plan area and surrounded by a park, represents early 20th-century church building that drew on Gothic influences. The church is built of brick and rendered in a pale colour. Its plan is that of a long church, with an asymmetrically placed tall tower attached to it. Double-gabled transepts attach to the nave on both sides. The windows are three-part, and above the entrance is a large neo-Gothic rose window. Neo-Gothic features are also represented by the bell tower and the small corner turrets. The church park contains a heroes' cemetery and several memorials to the war dead. The first of these is the statue by sculptor Evert Porila, erected in 1924 for the Whites of the 1918 war. Next to the heroes' cemetery is a memorial to the Kemi men who fell in the Winter War and the Continuation War, designed by sculptor Emil Filén and dating from 1949.

Together with the church, the schools that form the town centre and are significant to the townscape include the Musiikkiopisto (1899 Alb. Petrelius), Kemin lukio (1930 Hjalmar Åberg), Keskuskoulu (1936 Toivo Salervo), Vanha ammattikoulu (1939 O. J. A. Viljanen, extension 1945 Hannu K. Vainio), and the former girls' lyceum (1953 Onni J. Ermala).

The block 107 and its surviving late 19th-century building stock best illustrate the old town structure: the Jänkälä house (1875), the Pruntsi house (1874), the Penttilä house (1897), and the brick building originally built as a flour storehouse, the so-called Leipätehdas (1897). The Junnelius house at Sauvosaarenkatu 18, richly decorated and dating from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, belongs to the ensemble of block 107.

At the end of Kauppakatu, in the inner harbour area, is an ensemble formed by the former customs storehouse, customs office and harbour office. The wooden customs storehouse (1874) and the stone customs office (1912). The harbour office dates from the end of the 19th century.

In Meripuisto, next to the open-air museum area, is the ornate Puistopaviljonki from the 1890s (W. Wilenius). A wooden residential building of Rautaniemi, built in 1849, has been moved to the open-air museum area of Kemi museum. The area also contains some ten old granary storehouses.

History

A town was planned at the Kemijoki river mouth as early as the 17th century. The project was never realised, because the town of Tornio was already located nearby.

The founding of Kemi after the mid-19th century was linked to the measures of Emperor Alexander II to improve the operating conditions of industry and shipping. Governor-General Berg assigned the governor of Oulu Province, Alexander Lavonius, the task of identifying a suitable site for a staple town to be built at the Kemijoki river mouth. Of three alternatives, Sauvosaarenniemi, on the sea shore on the east side of the Kemijoki river, was chosen.

A decree on the founding of the town of Kemi was issued in 1856, and provincial architect L.I. Lindqvist was assigned the task of drawing up the town plan. The founding charter of the town of Kemi was published, and a grid plan following the planning ideals and fire safety regulations of the time was confirmed in 1869.

Building according to the town plan took place by the end of the 19th century. The harbour with its customs house was initially built onto Laitakari island, where the Oulu merchant Johan Bergbom had founded a steam sawmill. A harbour and customs house were built on Sauvosaari in 1873, after the Senate had approved the harbour plan of district engineer Knut Granfelt. Harbour activity remained modest until 1903, when the railway to Kemi was completed. A new customs house was built to designs by architect Valter Thomé in 1912.

Kemi town parish was separated from the rural parish in 1902, and the rendered brick church of Kemi, designed by architect Josef Stenbäck, was completed in 1903.