Finland revisited

Gil Sutton is a recently retired professor of architecture at Carleton University in Ottawa. The following is an excerpt from the speech he gave in Ottawa at the opening of a photographic exhibition on the works of Alvar Aalto and other Finnish architects in November 2002. In his speech Mr. Sutton, while discussing the merits of Finnish design, reflected upon his two trips to Finland.

"My wife and I lived and worked, studied and taught in Finland twice: first in the early '60s and then again at the turn of the century.

"Through those 36 years, I was struck by the continuity of excellence in design that I attribute to the Finns' closeness to their land, which is unique physically, politically, culturally, and linguistically. This, I suggest, results in a special awareness and expression of the many moods of light, of organic form, and of the interplay of water, rock, and forest, not only as exhibited in Aalto's work and that of other architects, but also in their nationalistic literature, evocative music, iconic painting, and fast athletes.

"Today, when we in Canada think of Finland's contribution to our country, we are apt to think of such exports as hockey players, orchestra conductors, Nokia cell phones, and, of course, Sibelius. Most Canadians would not remember now, if they knew at all, that Toronto City Hall was designed by a Finn, Viljo Revell, who won a major international competition in 1959, which saw over 600 entries submitted from around the world.

"But to really appreciate Finland's history of excellence in design, architecture, and industrial design, I believe it is necessary to visit Finland to see and experience first hand the body and source of this excellence. And so, in the early 1960s my wife Earlene and I travelled from Britain to Finland, where we lived, worked and studied for almost two years.

"Finland then was just starting to recover from two costly wars with the Soviet Union, which had saddled it with a large war reparations debt (which, by the way, it paid in full, in record time). As well, one tenth of its population had been displaced with the loss of the Karelian Isthmus and the Petsamo Peninsula. Many of its male population had died fighting in the war, and to add insult to injury the Soviets placed crippling and stifling political and economic conditions on the Finnish people.

"Private cars then were scarce and considered a luxury, the cost of living was high, and housing stock was in short supply. Earlene and I survived on simple fare: turnips and potatoes, some minced meat and cheap Algerian wine, enhanced by some very good company in the special atmosphere of candlelight on those long winter evenings.

"While Earlene taught English, read the news in English on the radio, and commenced a graduate degree in philosophy at Helsinki University with Jaakko Hintikka, I tried in vain for a place in Aalto's office, along with dozens of others who knocked on his door every week.

"Nevertheless, there was a consolation in living in a beautifully renovated cottage on an outlying island that had been owned by Maija Heikinheimo, an interior architect who had worked until her death for Artek, the marketing outlet for Aalto's furniture and industrial design. The cottage, with a copper roof, was filled with Aalto furniture, lamps, glassware, fabrics, and a huge library of books in five languages, with the piece-de-resistance, a sketch by Aalto of Heikinheimo, which hung over our bed.

"In spite of the absence of the amenities that we now take for granted, those were two of the happiest years of our lives. There, we came to appreciate the Finns' love of their landscape and their cultural traditions, and their reverence for light that permeates their best architecture and many of their customs. Throughout the seasons, light moves from a period of abundance to one of scarcity in this land of extremes.

"One of the most memorable experiences was on Christmas Eve when we visited Helsinki's main cemetery. It was late in the afternoon, pitch-black, but when we entered the cemetery grounds, the candles, stuck into the snow at each grave, created a magically luminous landscape, highlighting the birch trees, gravestones, and tears of memory: forest, rock, and water."

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