Helsinki!! June 1, 2019 — A very long day (24 hours of sunshine, so a very long post)

Hei Hei (which was the “casual” greeting for friends when I lived here) and now they seem to say “Moi” or “Moi Moi”… Nothing stays the same, everything changes. Here we are at June 1, 2019 (just 20 days before the midnight sun when Finland will pretty much have 24 hours of daylight)… Today the sun rose at about 4 a.m. (full sunrise), so light around 3 am; set at 10:30 pm.

We started our day with a simple takeaway breakfast snack (from the little take-away cafe at the hotel., so as not to lose too much time with a fussy breakfast – just simple  croissant /scone. And we were off.

Started out by walking to our old apartment building:  Eerikinkatu 25 B (Eerikinkatu kaksikymmentäviisi B; pronounced Cokxy-kumenta-vees-ee Bay); some things you just never forget. As we walked to the old haunt, we passed the little pocket park that each of us would pass daily on our way to work, shopping, or whatever (whenever we weren’t driving). This time we noticed a statue and were initially embarrassed that we never saw this on any of the days we had lived just down the street. So we checked it out and it is a statue of Arvo Kustaa Parkkila – he was a former alcoholic who started a support group for homeless alcoholics to help provide food, shelter, and emergency care. The statue wasn’t there when we lived there because he was still alive. Apparently when the statue was unveiled (in 2001) speech-makers included the prime minister, the mayor of Helsinki, and others. As I said, we lived in the neighborhood where lots of men (I only saw men in these  conditions) were walking down the street totally inebriated.

On this totally perfect sunny day (eat your heart out London!), we set out to see the new institutions in Helsinki. Walked to new museum (the Amos Rex) which is underground, and sort of across the street from Kiasma (another fairly new art muiseum we saw over the last 10 years). Apparently the story is that the museum (Amos Anderson) wanted a new museum and they set their sites on the old Amos Rex movie theater. But the building was too small and they wanted to expand. They couldn’t get permission from the city for the expansion. The architects came up with the idea of expanding underground and this created a moonscape and fun climbing ”domes” at street level. The museum was closed to install a new exhibit so we only saw the exterior.

From there we walked to the new central library – the Finns still read—real books—in spite of just how high tech the entire country is. (Frankly walking around here, I feel as if the US is a developing nation)

One of the largest bookstores in the world is here in Helsinki – Stockmann Akateemien Kirja Kauppa (sp?) and nearly every book that is published in English or other languages get translated into Finnish. Anyway, five years ago we saw the new university library which was  quite wonderful, but the new central public library which they call the Oodi is a joy and so much more than a library – totally expands the notion of what a library is and might be.

 It’s like an urban gathering place with people of all ages and all backgrounds spending good amounts of time there.. The first floor is the makers’ level – with sewing machines, 3D printers, woodworking, giant printers (40×60 and larger), and more. The second floor has books and great reading niches, and the top third floor is considered the peoples’ living room which is about an acre and a half of unobstructed space (no walls) with wonderful wood floors, white bookshelves that are only about 3 feet high so you are always conscious of the space and the outdoors since the exterior walls are floor-to-ceiling windows, and an amazing outdoor terrace that goes the length of the building.. Inside on the third floor there is an area for knitting and even “designer” rocking chairs. People were relaxing, reading the newspapers from around the world, and chatting. There are three coffee shops – one per floor, and a bona fide restaurant on the first floor. There’s a cinema, a sauna, and lots of meeting rooms. There are even special areas inside to park you baby carriage.

The library faces the Parliament and is said to be a statement about the people meeting the government (perhaps prepared, well-read, and armed with real facts!) There is also a spectacular spiral stair in the center of the building on whose walls are written 350 words (I think) in Finnish – words that the community suggested in an online request. So, it’s architecturally interesting and inspiring and also conceptually taking public places beyond the norm. That said, the library is primarily a digital library that connects with all other libraries in Finland and the full-scale lending library (with all the books) is located at the older central library.

From there we strolled through the Heslsingin Sanomat (the major newspaper) building which has a big atrium, a Fazer café, all sorts of sitting and reading nooks (to read the paper?); grabbed a simple Finnish open-face sandwich and then continued on our way to the new Helsinki Music Centre which is also just a five-minute walk from the library. Along the way, we kept running into those white-caps (students who graduated from high school and who passed the matriculation exams for the university. Happy families, lots of flowers, and lots of strolling through the city.

The music center is elegant and understated; the performance area (new home for the symphony, philharmonic, etc.) which is essentially underground, enabling the building to be elegant and low, is surrounded by a ring of double glass walls – so technically you can see the performance (I assume) when the lights are on and it’s dark at the entry level. One funny thing is that the coat check area is huge – imagine all those heavy coats and hats and other gear for cold weather needing to be hung up before performances. The performance hall was closed, but a nice guard let us in to see it. I asked what they are now doing with Finlandia Hall (the old symphony hall) and he responded that it was now being used for “congresses” which I took to mean conferences. That building had been designed by Aalto and was under construction when we lived here.

We walked past the major train station (rautatieasema) … note that the statues (the lantern bearers—lyhdynkantajat) are wearing caps supporting Finland’s soccer team! Having amassed a lot of culture for the day, we hopped on the Metro to Hertonniemi – location of the Marimekko Outlet Store, a must when visiting Helsinki. Mike found a nice couch with Marimekko pillows scattered about and proceeded to take a nap (embarrassing) and I did my quota of shopping for the trip. Then we headed back to downtown by Metro and walking and Mike headed to the hotel, while I strolled around to find some Nikes or similar shoe; seems as if we will be going on our friend’s wooden boat (weather permitting) on Tuesday and I really didn’t bring shoes for that. I’m up for a new pair anyway. 

Got back to the room for a short bit and off we went to meet the son of friends of ours from our days in Helsinki. He was about 7 years old when we lived here; he currently lives in London, but has lived in the states (LA and NY) for the past 30 years. He emigrated to the US soon after graduate school in Finland (MBA), but always had a passion for contemporary music (rock band in high school), and he had started a music company in Finland in his 20s. He did a second MBA at UCLA where he focused on the music industry. From there he went to BMG Music and somewhere along the way decided to get a law degree. He’s successfully merged all of these interests and studies, and was the Director of International Publishing at Google for about 8 years. He recently moved to London to join PRS where he heads the international division. Complicated, but I think they deal with protecting the copyright agreements for musicians and writers. Anyway, we had dinner and got caught up. His mother (died in 2013) was an amazing Finnish art historian and specialist in contemporary Soviet art. She was also the editor of the Finnish Art magazine, Taide (meaning “art”), which is how I met her. When I was here I had a grant from the Finnish American Society, to exhibit my work. In the course of preparing for that show, I went to meet with “Taide.” Anne and her family had just returned from living in the US for a year (Berkeley and Johns Hopkins). Tapani, her husband (and Sami’s father) is a sociologist who held the highest academic position possible at the University of Helsinki, winning the Finnish equivalent of the MacArthur genius award (twice). They became our good friends and we connected with them many times when they were traveling in the states and of course on all visits to Finland. Anne invited me many years ago to speak at an international conference and exhibit – my talk was about the state of art in the states. I probably have it buried somewhere. And later Mike and I co-authored an article for “Taide” on the magazine’s 25^th? 50^th? Anniversary. Also must have that somewhere.

We met at Shelter – a new restaurant situated in an old warehouse in the Katajanokka Harbor. Food was surprisingly good. We shared whitefish ceviche with prawns, coriander, and avocado-wasabi cream; beef tartare with lovage, crispy potato, and red onion; grilled octopus with some kind of almond romesco, and yuzu flavored yoghurt; for the main course we all had braised perch with baby potatoes, a dill pesto, asparagus and roe butter. Finland now produces some special gin, so Mike and Sami had gin and tonics; I opted for their special Shelter Mojito.  It was great to see Sami (we last saw him in NY about 4 years ago). He has two grown children who interestingly enough have settled in Seattle! Miko, the son, is fast becoming a music business entrepreneur and is setting up some kind of city music festival in August. Sammi’s daughter Kia is working for the Pacific Science Center. We will definitely connect with them when we are next in Seattle in June. On Monday, we are scheduled to visit Sami’s dad, Tapani who is in an assisted living center, suffering from dementia. That will be tough. I last saw Tapani about 7 years ago (when I came to see Anne after she had a serious stroke), before Anne passed away. Interestingly, their other son, Tatu who lives in LA and is a photographer, is also here in Helsinki on vacation so we will see him on Monday when we visit Tapani. It continues to be quite a reunion. 

OK.. that’s it for me. It’s about midnight and we have a long day tomorrow in Espoo and on to Fiskars Village Biennale.

Fern