August 27, 2014 – Helsinki

Terve Terve

After returning to the Radisson Hotel last night.. and limping along from the Metro station to the hotel, we decided to relocate early this morning to the Hotel Kamp… a wonderful hotel with a colorful history in the very center of Helsinki … in close proximity to everything and excellent access to public transit.

Like the Soho Hotel in Berlin, the Kämp also has an interesting story –It’s 125-years old. Carl Kämp was born in 1848 and moved to Helsinki as a young man and established a restaurant which became well-known. His goal was to design and build a modern, continental hotel in Helsinki. He hired Theodor Höijer who created a grand design that was completed in 1887.. right at Pohoisesplanadi and Kluuvikatu. It was praised as “regal, magnificent” and was the first hotel in all of Finland to have an elevator. It quickly became a gathering place for the political and cultural scene of Helsinki. In those days, cafés and restaurants were where people got the latest news and gossip and Kämp became an important center for daily news. Indeed, the staff of what is now the Helsingin Sanomat (Helsinki’s version of the New York Times) used to have daily meetings in the Hotel café.

Some very important Finns gathered at the Kamp and even stayed for long periods of time. Mannerheim, Finnish military leader, stayed at Hotel Kämp for several months in 1919. (Mannerheim was the military leader of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War, commander in chief of Finland’s defense forces during WWII, and the 6th president of Finland. They say that in a survey conducted in Finland more than 50 years after his death, Mannerheim was named the greatest Finn of all time. He’s also credited with preserving Finland’s independence from Russia, and is basically hailed as the father of modern Finland.) Many other important Finns, including Sibelius, would gather at the restaurant/hotel. In the 60s the bar was a hangout for Finland’s left.

But then the hotel hit rough times and in the early 1960s one of the large banks (Kansallis-Osake-Pankki) decided to buy the building and use it as a bank and office building. To do this they wanted to demolish the old building and replace it with a modern one. A people’s movement formed to stop the demolition and the issue became a national controversy. In the mid-1960s, there was a party to give the old hotel a farewell and a new bank was built, but with some nod to preservation by retaining the façade and some staircases. The bank (KOP) was located at the site until the late 1990s when the Hotel was brought back to life. It’s a great hotel with impeccable service, grand rooms, and the lap of luxury. (Mike thought this would be good for me medically!)

Anyway, we checked into the Hotel and headed across the way to Fazer for a light but traditional Finnish breakfast…Karjalan Piirakka (Karelian Pie) With Egg Butter.. It’s a traditional Finnish item made with a thin rye crust and a filling of ground rice. Egg butter is spread over the top and it is heated.

And then we headed to the TaideHalle (Art Hall) to meet old friends (Antti and Heidi Paatero) to see the exhibit of the work of Hilma af Klimt — a Swedish painter (1862-1944) who was painting abstract works in the early 1900s, years before the major works of Kandinsky and Malevich. In her will, she protected her work from publicity, such that it was not to be exhibited until 20 years after her death.. She was apparently convinced that only future generations would appreciate it. It was quite fascinating and her story was interesting.. She was part of a group of women who called themselves “The Five” (a group that met weekly to discuss their work and also their belief in mysticism and supposedly performed séances). Her paintings were often a representation of spiritual ideas. The Five created what they called “automatic drawing” in the late 1890s.. and she dealt strongly with a visual language that was highly geometric. Obviously in those days women artists were not taken seriously and that could be why she didn’t want her work exhibited until much later…

From there, the four of us walked (yes I’m walking.. although still limping) to a classic Finnish restaurant called Elite (a mainstay since the 1930s favored by Finland’s cultural and artistic circles.. We had so much to talk about and reminisce about that we were at the restaurant for about five hours. We managed to cover family changes, professional changes, the state of the Finnish and European economy, US politics, American and Finnish health care, and more). Antti is a (somewhat recently semi-retired) interior architect, known for having done the interior spaces and also renovation of many public buildings — most especially the President’s official residence, as well as the Mikel and Rauma town halls, several churches and also the Helsinki Opera House. Heidi was the minister of social affairs and health. I met Heidi rather randomly when we lived here.. (I was trying to buy bread crumbs, but I didn’t know the Finnish word for it. I was in a bakery in the neighborhood where we lived.. and I asked for “small bread” — Piney Lippi; and they showed me rolls, so I asked for “pieni, pieni, pieni leippa”.. small, small, small bread; no one knew what I wanted.. But I was determined and the line behind me kept growing longer and longer; people were probably getting frustrated. Anyway, suddenly a woman came from the back of the line and asked if I spoke English.. and what did I want. She laughed and asked for the bread crumbs in Finnish.. and then she invited us for dinner the following week. We became good friends as did Mike and Antti who share a lot of similar philosophical positions about architecture and planning.)

We all then hopped on a tram to meander through Helsinki noting new buildings, changes since our last visit (five years for Mike and only 10 months for me).. and happily arrived at the hotel before it started to pour (complete with lightning and thunder and a grand rainbow). So we did what all good Finns do — we retreated to the bar! and continued the ongoing conversation.

Tomorrow morning I will go to a local clinic to have my foot looked at; perhaps an x-ray. I don’t think it’s a problem, but Heidi with her medical background convinced me that it should at least be looked at. So, rather than sitting in a hospital ER she said I could go to one of the new private clinics (yes they have private medical clinics now — something they didn’t have when we lived here) in a social-democrat country. And that’s a long story.

Off to dinner.. More tomorrow. I think we are fairly free and on our own most of Thursday and Friday. We’ll scout around to some of the places we were familiar with in the days we lived here.. Possibly drive (or train) to Porvoo, but I think the extent of the travel will depend on my foot… I’ve been walking and it’s been fine.. just a little slow and a slight limp.. but much less pain. (Thanks to all of you who have contacted me with worry about my foot).

Hyvästi nyt (goodbye for now)

Fern

PS — Just got back from dinner and the small world stories continue.. In the hotel restaurant (which we decided to frequent given that it was raining hard and my foot was tired from a whole day of activities.. ), Mike ran into a faculty member from UW Architecture School. She had been teaching in the department’s Scandinavian Summer Program.. and had stomach pains for a few days and finally went to a doctor to check it out and had a ruptured appendix and was in the hospital for 12 days.. This was her first day out of the hospital!