Vakuutusyhtiö Pohjan talo, Lasipalatsi ja Rautatalo (Försäkringsbolaget Pohjas hus, Glaspalatset och Järnhuset)

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

Vakuutusyhtiö Pohja building, Lasipalatsi and Rautatalo are valued for their pioneering structural and architectural solutions in their own time. All three commercial buildings in the capital's city centre belong to the Finnish modern architecture selection of landmark works approved by the international DOCOMOMO organisation.

The Vakuutusyhtiö Pohja commercial building is considered the first functionalist building in Helsinki. Hallmarks of modernism include, among others, smooth-rendered facades, ribbon windows wrapping around the building, large shop windows on the first commercial storeys, and a roof terrace. The eight-storey commercial building, built on a wedge-shaped plot, has a light court, in the lower storeys of which is located a two-storey office hall.

The open U-shaped commercial building of the Lasipalatsi borders the platform courtyard of the first bus station in Helsinki. Lasipalatsi is the only temporary bazaar building in central Helsinki that has survived. Behind its stylistically bold design of its time was the cooperative movement. The commercial units of the Lasipalatsi, located at a junction of traffic and urban structure, are walk-through; large open display windows showcase the commercial spaces on both sides of them, and neon signs and awnings colour the white slammed facades. Also among the impressive public spaces, with their fixed interiors and wall paintings, are the cinema and the restaurant hall.

Rautatalo was designed along Keskuskatu for the central organisations of the hardware trade, after which the building is named and which gave it its metal facades. The copper facade of Rautatalo subtly takes account of the architecture of the late 1920s in the neighbouring buildings. The building's architectural and functional central space is a light court three storeys high, the so-called Marmorihalli, bordered by the galleries of the office spaces. Around the light court, on the upper floors, are the galleries that serve as side corridors of the office spaces, and on the lowest level the shop spaces. The light court, with its cafés, fountains and marble surfaces, is considered an application by Alvar Aalto of transferring Mediterranean outdoor spaces to northern conditions.

History

In commercial building architecture of the 1930s, modern structural and architectural solutions were sought. Henkivakuutusyhtiö Pohja and Eläkevakuutusyhtiö Elonvara, which were building new commercial buildings along Kaisaniemenkatu, also sought such solutions and held an architectural competition for their office buildings in 1928. The Elonvara competition was won by architect Yrjö Lindegren and Pohja's architect Oiva Kallio. The Pohja building is a commercial building in accordance with the principles of Central European functionalism, which upon completion in 1930 gained renown for its modernity. Its location on Kaisaniemenkatu is based on the breakthrough street plan drawn up by Eliel Saarinen in 1912-1913. A new façade was also intended to be created along the transverse traffic route leading from Rautatientori.

The site of the so-called Turun kasarmi, built in Kamppi in the 1830s, passed into municipal ownership in 1934. The city leased the barracks area for 10 years to a bus station for local and long-distance traffic and to a bazaar building. The barracks' outbuilding was renovated into a bus station. Suomen osuuskauppojen keskuskunta (SOK) and the Voinvientiosuusliike Valio leased the Lasipalatsi site from the city, assigned the architectural design to architecture students Niilo Kokko, Viljo Revell and Heimo Riihimäki, and had the Lasipalatsi built. The bus station opened in 1935 and the Lasipalatsi in 1936. The new alignment of Heikinkatu, today's Mannerheimintie, which runs past the Lasipalatsi, was completed around the same time as the commercial building, in 1935: a metropolitan-style central boulevard was laid out with separate lanes for pedestrians, lime trees, cars and tramcars. The Lasipalatsi was restored in 1999, respecting the original design ideas (Arkkitehtitoimisto Alli Oy), and the Lasipalatsi media centre operates in the building.

An invited competition for the design of the commercial building at Keskuskatu 3 was held in 1950. Rautatalo was completed in 1955 on the basis of the winning proposal by architect Alvar Aalto. Aalto implemented the idea of Eliel Saarinen, who had planned the commercial street alignment of Keskuskatu in 1916, including the active use of the block's interior spaces.