Helsingin suomenkielinen työväenopisto (Helsingfors finskspråkiga arbetarinstitut)

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

The 1959 extension to the Helsinki Finnish-language workers' institute is a successful example of joining a new building section to an old one. The extension belongs to the selection of key works of Finnish modern architecture approved by the international DOCOMOMO organisation.

The Finnish-language workers' institute of the City of Helsinki is located on Helsinginkatu, to the north of Kallio Church. The building from the 1920s is joined by an extension completed in the late 1950s. The classicist old section, designed under architect Gunnar Taucher, is four storeys high and its façade has a portal two storeys high. The plinth is dark granite and the portal is light stone. The bronze reliefs on the building's portal and side walls were designed by sculptor Gunnar Finne.

The extension is built behind the old building, parallel to it, and connected to it by a link. The main older building provides the module of 360 cm, which the new section follows. Architect Aulis Blomstedt, whose research on the system of measure and proportion in architecture represents a rare theory in Finland, sought a measurement system suitable for the task and, on that basis, considered the functional and technical solutions of the plan. The new section, finished in the lightest façade colours, houses, among other things, the festival hall with its foyer, a student canteen and classrooms.

History

Debate on urban planning in Northern Europe was lively at the end of the 19th century. In growing industrial cities such as Helsinki, architects wanted to take planning away from engineers and make it the task of architects. The finalisation of the 1901 town plan for Kallio was influenced by architect Gustaf Nyström and by the simultaneous debate about the plan for Töölö, which valued the terrain's contours and varied street views. Parts of the central monumental urban space composition of the Kallio town plan were realised, such as Kallio Church with its park and the main building of the workers' institute, which lies on the same axis as the church.

The Helsingin kaupunginvaltuusto founded the Helsingin kaupungin Työväenopisto in 1913. Several other workers' institutes had already been founded in Finland before Helsinki, the first in Tampere in 1899. In Helsinki there were just under 3000 students in the first year. The city supported the educational activities for workers that had begun in the 19th century, whose main organisers were Kansanvalistusseura and the workers' association. The central figure of general-education workers' institute activity in Finland was Zachris Castrén, the first director of the Helsinki workers' institute. The workers' institute began its activities as a Finnish-language department and a Swedish-language department.

Kallio was a densely populated working-class residential district, to which the Finnish-language department received its own building at Helsinginkatu 26 in 1927. The Helsinki City Finnish-language workers' institute was designed in the Helsinki City Building Department under city architect Gunnar Taucher.

The extension designed by architect Aulis Blomstedt, which is more than twice the floor area of the older section, was completed in 1959 on the southern part of the plot.

An artwork by artist Sam Vanni was acquired for the lower foyer of the extension. Vanni won the competition arranged for the acquisition with his work Contrapunctus - Kaaoksesta järjestykseen (1959 - 1960). The mural was the first abstract artwork in Finland to be chosen as a competition winner and realised with funding from a public institute. The stage curtain of the workers' institute's festival hall, in turn, was the first public work of artist Juhana Blomstedt, an appliqué composed of geometric shapes and primary colours.