Helsingin Aleksanterinkatu (Alexandersgatan i Helsingfors)

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

Aleksanterinkatu, the main commercial street in central Helsinki, is one of the earliest in Finland. The head offices of commercial banks and insurance companies, as well as several of the most important department stores and specialist shops, are concentrated along it. The artistic and technical features of the commercial buildings that date from many decades along Aleksanterinkatu generally reflect the leading architectural developments of their time of construction and are often based on solutions adopted from international contacts.

The square at the junction of Aleksanterinkatu and Mannerheimintie, with the Kolmen Sepän patsas and bordered by the Stockmann department store and the Vanha ylioppilastalo, has become one of the important nodes of central Helsinki.

The street space at the western end of Aleksanterinkatu is narrow and high, and the blocks are densely built. The head offices and commercial buildings of banks and insurance companies are mainly from the 1880s to the 1950s and represent the most progressive design principles of their construction periods, both in structure and in architectural design. The needs of business have guided both the construction and the use and alteration of the buildings.

The façade of the old head office of the Yhdyspankki, designed by Gustaf Nyström and completed in 1898, is the first in Finland to be faced with natural domestic stone. Among the first commercial buildings in Helsinki along the street are the Tallbergin talo (1899) and the Lundqvistin talo (1901), designed by architect Selim A. Lindqvist. The essential feature of the Lundqvistin liiketalo is the combination of large window surfaces with an ornamental steel and concrete frame, which was modern for its time. The Pohjolan talo (1901), an insurance company building designed by the architects Gesellius-Lindgren-Saarinen, is one of the key buildings of National Romantic Jugend. Its exterior architecture is characterised by a roughly dressed stone façade decorated with soapstone ornamentation. The load-bearing structures of the Pohjolan talo use cast-iron columns. The commercial building Hamstern (1907) is purely of reinforced concrete construction. The Liittopankin talo, the Stockmann department store and the Fazerin talo are commercial buildings designed in the 1920s, in which pilaster motifs alternate with ribbon windows to articulate the mass. Closest to Senaatintori, the red granite Pohjoismaiden Yhdyspankin talo belongs to the same series. The Elannon tavaratalo was completed in 1953. The three-storey Litoniuksen talo from the 1850s stands out from the high row of bank and commercial building façades at the western end of the street.

Numerous changes have been made to the buildings and their interiors, and shop premises were later created at street level (including in the Litoniuksen talo and the Yhdyspankin talo). Although bank and insurance company offices have been converted to shop use, such as the Kansallispankin talo becoming part of the block's shopping centre in 1999, Aleksanterinkatu and its surroundings remain a concentration of banks and banking businesses in particular.

The eastern end of Aleksanterinkatu differs in character from its western end. The line of the street dates from the 1640s, and it runs alongside Senaatintori and the blocks of the University of Helsinki and the Valtioneuvoston linna. On the south side of Senaatintori, the street is lined by burghers' houses built in the 18th century, whose façades were made uniform in the first half of the 19th century in accordance with Engel's overall plan. Next to the Valtioneuvoston linna stands the neo-Gothic Ritarihuone (1862) with its forecourt garden, on the site originally reserved for the säätytalo in the town plan. Set at an angle to the line of the street is the customs and warehouse building, which dates from the mid-18th century fortress plans and is connected to Pohjoissatama.

History

The eastern end of Aleksanterinkatu followed its present alignment already in the 1640s, as the main street named Helsingin Stora gatan after the move to Vironniemi. The street ran from Pohjoisranta to Kluuvinlahti. Suurkatu was the commercial centre of Helsinki already in the 18th century, when the wealthiest burghers built their merchant houses along it. The old customs and warehouse building was located along Suurkatu in 1765, close to the harbour at Pohjoisranta.

After Kluuvinlahti was filled in during the 1840s, the street was joined to the road leading west, and the new plots that came into being made it possible to move trade and business activity from the market square to the street. The first monumental building at the western end of the street was the Vanha ylioppilastalo, completed in 1870. It was designed by architect Hampus Dahlström and built with funds raised through a national collection. The Uusi ylioppilastalo was completed beside it on Mannerheimintie in 1910. Felix Nylund's Kolmen sepän patsas was erected on the square at the junction of Aleksanterinkatu and Mannerheimintie in 1932.

From the late 19th century onwards, banking expanded westwards from the blocks between Kauppatori and Senaatintori to Aleksanterinkatu, where bank head offices were built from the 1890s. In addition to the banking sector, several multi-storey commercial buildings and department stores rose along the street. The Stockmann department store moved from the south side of Senaatintori to a new building at the junction of Aleksanterinkatu and Mannerheimintie in 1930. Keskuskatu was cut through in 1921 to ease the flow of traffic from the direction of the railway station to Esplanadi. In 1929 the street-front plots on Aleksanterinkatu were granted additional building rights, with the aim of a uniform line of street façades independent of variations in the terrain. Almost all of the old commercial buildings had additional storeys built, with the exception of the Pohjolan, Lundqvistin and Yhdyspankin talot.

The Aleksanterinkatu Christmas street tradition began in 1949, when the street traders' association was founded and Aleksanterinkatu was decorated and illuminated for the first time as a Christmas street.