Senaatintori ympäristöineen (Senatstorget med omgivning)

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

Senaatintori is the main square of the capital. The public buildings bordering Senaatintori reflect the position of central government, the church and the university in 19th-century Finland. As the centre of the state and of Helsinki, the square has acquired an established national symbolic status. Internationally, the square is a significant, well-preserved work of urban art. Senaatintori is one of the city's best-known sights and a component of the image of Finland.

The layout of the square reflects the pursuit of symmetry and axiality characteristic of classicist urban art. The whole is built on the neoclassical architecture of the architect C.L. Engel. The Valtioneuvoston linna (former Senaatintalo) on the east side of the square, the main building of Helsingin yliopisto on the west side of the square, and the cathedral (Nikolainkirkko) with its terrace on the north side of the square are an impressive showcase of Engel's skill and, at the same time, of the aims of representation and means of expression that guided the early development of the capital.

The colonnade architecture of the monumental buildings, which goes back to ancient Greece and Rome, underlines the position of Senaatintori as the heart of the capital of the Grand Duchy and of imperial Finland. Interior spaces include, among others, the throne room (now the presidential reception room) and the ceremonial hall of the university. In the centre of the square stands the statue of Aleksanteri II, and on the south wall of the university library building is the bust of Aleksanteri I by Ivan Martos.

The cathedral on its terrace, which forms part of the city's maritime silhouette, is a cross-plan church with a tower ending in a dome and Corinthian open colonnades on the arms of the cross. State and university festive services are held in the cathedral. Senaatintori is an important venue for events, where the large steps of the cathedral terrace serve as a stage and auditorium for mass events.

The Valtioneuvoston linna on the east side of the square is an impressive neoclassical creation, with its Corinthian temple front and dome, and with a formal staircase arrangement leading from the square to the building. The most important interior spaces are the Senate session hall on the main floor behind the temple front, and the impressive staircase hall, likewise on the central axis of the building. The wings of the building, of different ages, form an architecturally unified, classicist-looking whole and enclose a large courtyard. In the middle of the courtyard is the former printing house. The Valtioneuvoston linna is the country's most important historical administrative building.

The main building of Helsingin yliopisto is a symmetrical pair to the Valtioneuvoston linna on the opposite side of the square. It consists of two three-storey main wings: the so-called old wing, designed by Engel and completed in the 1830s, on the side of Senaatintori, and the so-called new wing, built in the 1930s along Fabianinkatu. The old and new parts are joined on the street sides by low wings, and in the middle of the plot is a high linking section, which houses the building's most significant interior spaces, the ceremonial hall and the large lecture hall.

The views of Senaatintori include, at the north-east corner of the square, the yliopistomuseo building (former chemistry department), and at the north-west corner, along Unioninkatu, the building of the university library. The university library building and the Pyhän Kolminaisuuden kirkko behind the cathedral are an essential part of the ensemble of public Empire-style buildings along Unioninkatu, which adjoins Senaatintori.

The south side of the square is formed in part by a row of burghers' houses dating from the second half of the 18th century. In its present exterior, the row mainly reflects the architectural aims of the first half of the 19th century. The Sederholm house has retained its exterior as a modest 18th-century building. The governor-general's house, remodelled by Engel from a burgher's house, with its temple-fronted façade, binds the row of buildings on the south side to the representative colonnade architecture of the square's other sides.

History

Senate Square was planned in J.A. Ehrenström's Helsinki town plan of 1812 as the main square of the capital. Around the square were to stand the most important buildings of the early capital: the Senaatintalo, the residence of the Governor-General and the city's main Lutheran church.

Senate Square was originally occupied by the considerably smaller old Suurtori of Helsinki, with its town hall, church and main guardhouse.

Construction of the Senaatintalo began in 1818 according to plans by the architect C.L. Engel, starting with the main wing facing the square. The main wing and the wing facing Aleksanterinkatu, also drawn by Engel, were completed at the beginning of the 1820s. After the first building phases, the Senaatintalo grew in many stages into an office building filling the whole block. It received its present exterior in the first half of the 20th century. From Engel onwards, the design of the building was overseen by the architects of the building administration.

The old Bock house on the southern edge of the square was converted into the residence of the Governor-General according to a plan drawn up by Engel in 1816.

C.L. Engel began planning the Lutheran main church at the end of the 1810s, but construction only started in 1831. After Engel, the exterior of the church was altered by small towers added to the inner corners of the cross and by zinc-cast apostle statues placed at the corners of the gable triangles. The main guardhouse of 1819, which stood on the north side of the square against the church terrace, was demolished in the 1840s to make way for the monumental staircase rising from the square to the church terrace.

Pavilions were built at the square-side corners of the church terrace, on either side of the great staircase, and one of them came to function as a bell tower. The church was consecrated for use in 1852. Nikolai Church was renamed Suurkirkko in 1917. After the founding of the Helsinki diocese in 1959, it became the cathedral.

A prominent university main building designed by Engel was erected on the west side of the square in 1828–1832. The university had been decided to move to the capital after the Turku fire of 1827. The university library building was constructed in 1836–1840 to drawings by C.L. Engel, on the north-west corner of the square, along Unioninkatu, which runs along the western edge of Senate Square.

In the 1820s, a short distance north of Nikolai Church, along Unioninkatu, the Orthodox Pyhän Kolminaisuuden kirkko was built to drawings by C.L. Engel.

The university chemistry laboratory, designed by the architect C.A. Edelfelt, was completed on the north-east corner of the square in 1869. After it ceased to be used at the beginning of the 2000s, the building was restored and converted into a university museum, Arppeanum.

The row of stone burghers' houses on the southern side of the square, mainly from the 18th century, was modernised in its exterior to match the uniform classicist appearance of Senate Square, including according to a 1831 plan by C.L. Engel, among others.