(continued)

In 1995, Ilonen and her partner Minna Lukander in the firm, Talli, were commissioned by the City of Helsinki to work out concepts for the conversion of the deteriorating Lasipalatsi, or glass palace.

Built as a shopping center in 1936, it had been designed by three architecture students Niilo Kokko, Viljo Revell, and Heimo Riihimäki, who had won the commission in a competition.

Talli took great care to revive the glamour of the old shopping palace which today houses cafes, libraries, an auditorium, an information center, and various small businesses related to new media.

Coats of golden paint next to illuminated lettering combine the nostalgia for the past with the newly inserted high-tech program. At night the Lasipalatsi glows as bright as it did in the 1930s.

The renovation of the old shopping court was only the first step in the reactivation of the area between the landmark train station by Eliel Saarinen and J.S. Siren's Parliament Building, probably Helsinki's two most important buildings from the first half of the last century.

Bringing New Life to the City Center

A series of competitions has aimed at making a new center from the wasteland in the heart of the city. To an international audience, the most famous of the new buildings is certainly the Kiasma, the Museum of Contemporary Art by Steven Holl.

But Kiasma is not a typical building in Helsinki. It refuses to adopt the structure of the urban block near the heavily trafficked intersection where it faces the Lasipalatsi. It has not found many followers.

The backside of the museum represents probably the most poetic piece of architecture in the city, with the bent sheets of corrugated metal folding out to form skylights. Watched from the neighboring bar in the newly built headquarters for Helsinki's newspaper, the Helsingin Sanomatalo, one feels carried away as if in a submarine.

The newspaper building was the winning entry to another competition won by Sarlotta Narjus and Antti-Matti Sikula, who gained recognition for their design of the Finnish Pavilion at the 2000 World Expo in Hannover.

The Sanomatalo however, unlike the Expo pavilion with the birch tree courtyard, is a rather plain glass box, which has been described as "mid-tech" by a visiting critic.

The Burden of History

The architecturally savvy tourist may wonder if the spirit of Alvar Aalto is still alive outside of his meticulously preserved buildings. While older architects still seem paralyzed by the invisible presence of the master, the mid-age generation claims to have overcome the desire to assassinate the overwhelming figure of Aalto.

For architects in their early thirties, the question seems absurd. For example, inside the office of Valvomo, just one floor below the Talli office, the winds of new-tech have set their sails in the direction of trendy bars, like "Pravda" in downtown Helsinki, dot-com office interiors, and product design.

After collaborating with Talli on the renovation of the Kaapeli, where Valvomo took charge of the interior designs for the museums within the complex, they made their international appearance with the design of the Globlow lamps produced by Snowcrash, a design resembling oversized pillows which inflate when the light and the ventilator are turned on.

Today, this young firm, among varied other projects, is developing prototypes for mobile phone-activated liquid crystal display panels. To ask about the influence of Aalto seems like asking for directions to the next telegraph station.

Glass Cubes and Cylinders

There were other influential teachers in architecture during the time of Alvar Aalto's international acclaim. Aulis Blomstedt and Aarno Ruusuvuori, for example, taught within the Rationalist tradition.

By contrast, Aalto's intuitive approach seems harder to copy. (This is still done but, in most cases, in a rather superficial manner.)

The Helsingin Sanomatalo building can be taken as a typical example of the prevailing style in the contemporary Finnish architectural landscape. The most successful team exploring the formal possibility of the Boolean language of primary shapes constructed in facade layers of glass, wood, and metal are Heikkinen+Komonen.

Their monograph, published in 2000 by Monacelli Press, gives excellent insight into the leading partners of the contemporary Finnish trend.

In the United States, Heikkinen+Komonen have found recognition for their design of the Finnish Embassy in Washington D.C., and both their cylinder wrapped in wooden slats for McDonald's headquarters and their Media Center Lume next to Arabia's Porcelain factory on the east side of Helsinki have been widely published.

Another active firm is the office of ARK-House with partners Markku Erholtz, Hannu Huttunen, and Pentti Kareoja. Their projects are characterized by their use of various materials and innovative detail.

One of the most compelling of the realized projects by ARK-House is the primary school in Mustakivi Park in Vuossari/ Vantaa near Helsinki. The 20 -classroom building combines a rational organization in plan with experimental facade materials.

A balanced collage of warm and cold colors, "rich" and "poor" materials — like concrete with copper and iron dust next to corrugated aluminum — form an appropriate background for a primary school with progressive ideas in education.

By the Lakes and Forests

Even though half of Finland's population lives in the metropolitan area of Helsinki, the activity of young architects is not limited to this region. One building receiving much attention is the Sibelius Concert Hall in Lahti.

The result of another competition won by young architects — the Helsinki-based team of Palo-Rossi-Tikka in collaboration with Kimmo Lintula — the auditorium imitates the body of an oversized wooden instrument, which then is boxed into a glass cube.

Like a real-life demonstration of the possibilities of wood construction, the lobby features columns much heavier than a Finnish birch tree grove, rather like posts for mooring boats in the adjacent lake.

Arguably more than any other country in the world, Finland allows its young architects to build in glass, wood, and metal early in their career, a dynamic enabled by an exemplary public patronage.

Sabine von Fischer is a freelance writer, architect, and principal of Normal Group for Architecture in New York.

When the City of Helsinki agreed to lease the abandoned factories, including the Kaapeli, architect Pia Ilonen worked out a concept for a renovation with minimal intervention. Photo: Normal Group for Architecture The Kaapeli, was a large abandoned cable factory reworked to create spaces for artists, designers, radio stations, theaters, and museums. Photo: Normal Group for Architecture Finnish Pavilion at the 2000 World Expo in Hannover by Sarlotta Narjus and Antti-Matti Sikula. Photo: Normal Group for Architecture Finnish Pavilion in Hannover. Photo: Normal Group for Architecture A school in Mustakivi near Helsinki by ARK-House. The 20-classroom building combines a rational organization in plan with experimental facade materials. Photo: Normal Group for Architecture A primary school in Mustakivi. Photo: Normal Group for Architecture The Sibelius Concert Hall in Lahti was the result of a competition won by the Helsinki-based team of Palo-Rossi-Tikka in collaboration with Kimmo Lintula. Photo: Normal Group for Architecture The auditorium of the Sibelius Concert Hall imitates the body of an oversized wooden instrument, which then is boxed into a glass cube. Photo: Normal Group for Architecture   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.