Sörnäisten vankila (Sörnäs fängelse)

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

The kuritushuone (central prison) established in Sörnäiset, Helsinki, is among the largest sites of the nationwide cell-prison building programme carried out in Finland at the end of the 19th century, alongside the new provincial prisons. The imposing prison complex at Sörnäiset is comparable to Kakolanmäki in Turku. The institution has been developed to meet the needs of modern penal administration within the framework of its historical architecture, and the Sörnäiset prison is one of the key sites of the built heritage of penal administration.

The multifaceted prison complex is dominated by an imposing brick castle, with its cell wings forming a double cross, its representatively designed gatehouses and its perimeter walls. The northward extension of the perimeter wall encircles the cell blocks and the younger workshop building. The prison's building stock outside the perimeter wall consists mainly of wooden and stone staff residential buildings in a well-kept, park-like setting. The oldest of these date from the main building phase and are linked to the prison complex as symmetrical parts of the overall composition.

Originally, the Sörnäiset kuritushuone was placed on the outskirts of the town of that time, in its own seclusion. Today, the Helsinki prison is surrounded by groups of residential apartment blocks. The character of the partly idyllic historical prison setting is changed by the shrinking of the institution's grounds and its enclosure in the middle of a modern residential area.

History

In connection with the preparation of the comprehensive reform of the criminal code and the penal system in the 1860s, currently topical European views were adopted in Finnish prison administration, such as the principle of gradually easing the status of the prisoner. Implementing the prison reform required replacing the building stock, which had become obsolete for prison administration. Instead of communal prison accommodation, cell wings were needed, whose benefits included the possibility of more individual treatment of prisoners. The cellular prison and the solutions crystallised in the early 19th century in the United States, namely the day and night cell system, were adopted. In Europe the day-cell system was favoured and developed, and it became predominant in Finland too. Night-cell wings were built in Finland only alongside the day-cell sections in the kuritushuone (Turun Kakola kuritushuone and Sörnäiset kuritushuone) to add to the range of means of isolation.

The main elements of the prison reform building programme were the construction of a new kuritushuone near the capital city. The programme was carried out in the 1870s and 1880s. In terms of its cost, scope and the lasting value of its results, the construction operation was, for its time in Finland, a remarkably purposeful undertaking to meet the needs of a single administrative branch within its view.

Architectural design and implementation were the responsibility of the yleisten rakennusten ylihallitus, working in close contact with the prison administration authorities. As designer, the main responsibility for adapting the cellular prison solutions to local building conditions was borne by L.I. Lindqvist, one of the architects of the building administration, who had also studied foreign cellular prisons on site.

Prisons of the reform period were built of brick. In addition to the spatial solutions, efforts were made to make careful use of results achieved elsewhere in the development of the cellular prison, including in the arrangements for ventilation and heating. The external walls of the multi-storey cell wings, left in brick with their small cell windows, and the corresponding perimeter wall gave the institutions their prison character.

The new kuritushuone in Sörnäiset, Helsinki, was largely completed by 1881. In the overall composition of this large-scale institution, axiality and symmetry were dominant. In plan, the prison building, resembling two crosses joined one after the other, stood in the middle of the courtyard enclosed by the perimeter wall and comprised (after additions in the early 20th century) an administration wing, two night-cell wings and three day-cell wings. Outside the wall, in the institutional setting laid out as a park, several buildings serving the prison were placed, such as staff housing.

Later alterations included, among others, a workshop building from the early 1930s, placed behind the brick castle and inside the extended perimeter wall. Around the same time the main entrance (gatehouse) acquired its present form and extent. The phases of alteration and repair of the prison included, among others, the renovation of the cell sections, begun in the 1990s and continued into the 2000s, which meant, among other things, the thorough internal conversion of the original night-cell wings into modern day-cell sections. The structural changes required by the renewal of prison operations were carried out for the most part in such a way that the external appearance of the historical building parts was preserved.