This sanitorium was one of quite a few built around Finland to deal with a large outbreak of tuberculosis. The goal of the facility was to give patients good food and lots of fresh air. The curious shaped awning above the entrance is hypothesized to be either in the shape of a lung or the spittoons patients carried to spit out their flem. Yes. It was an over-sharing kind of architectural visit.
We all had to wear blue booties over our shoes!!
Many of the windows are operable in the building. Peter claimed this was Aalto's design intention of having the building "breathe" to remind patients that they were somewhere meant to help them. I mostly think they are operable
I found this troughs interesting. They were designed for the condensation runoff because the glass was relatively thin. Apparently at the time of construction, Finland did not make glass sheets this large so it had to be imported from Germany.
That chair is quite famous. Later in the day we went to the factory where they are produced. Apparently about 100 are made and sold per year now. They are the only company that can make it beause they still use the original mold. Whenever we saw one in the building it was chained down. The chair is sitting on top of a curiously shaped fireplace. Apparently one of Aalto's innovations was having the fireplace have the chimney go down...this did not work (obviously) and the room would fill with smoke so it was almost never used. Instead, patients often hit alcohol and cigarettes in the fireplace - both were forbidden in the Sanitorium. I can't believe tubuculousis patients smoked...but people cannot be reasoned with in some areas.
The cafiteria - it was shared by patients and staff when the building was built. The windows are operable with some very interesting gears and levers.
A model of the building. This model was made by our history teacher's husband - it's a small world, particualarly inside the world of Finnish architecture.
The famous chair again and a lounge chair with blanket-bag. Patients were required to sit outside for a certain length of time. Often they were not allowed to speak during this time...apparently their recooperation goals resulted in a rather strict schedule.
Colorful stairs! The rise was intentionally slight so that patients could still get up when they had a low lung capacity.
Me and the Finnish forest and sun!
After this stop we returned to a gas station for lunch. I got the buffet which was slightly better than school food, but not by much. They did have pinapple rings which were wonderful. I do not understand the Finnish fasination with pinapple, but am not complaining. Then we went to the wood furniture (Korhronen Furtniture Factory) factory. The company was founded by Aalto and Korhonen. We went on a tour wearing headsets that allowed us to hear our guide as we followed the production process from the wood arriving until it was assembled. Our tourguide was, I think, the grandson of the man who began the company. Their current huge order is 10,000 black stools for Apple stores!
Next we went to a cemetary to look at a couple funerary chapels.
This is the Chapel of the Crosses. It is our history teacher, Sirkkaliisa's, favorite building in Finland.
It was an interesting mix of classical elements and modern design. I really liked most of the material selections.
Fuzzy...but cool light!
Oh, the Finns and their door handles
Saori took my picture so for one of the first times my arms are in the shot!
The second chapel had a crematorium in the basement. This is the Chapel of the Ressurrection by E. Bryggman in 1940.
The light in the space was simply amazing
I also took note of the vaiety of means of teating concrete.
Down the coffin goes towards the crematoria
It was a little chilly, but completely lovely outside
This was my favorite buidling of the day - the Turku library. It was built in 2005 and I enjoyed many aspects of the design. While cohesiveness was not its strong suit, it was developed from a complex of 5 (I think) previous buildings so that makes some sense. I particularly liked the children and teen section.
Cool stair, right??
We were all looking at this glass wall and thinking about our own building designs.
Air conditioning ran in the floor all along the books - interesting, I thought.
While I didn't love the materials used here, I really like the built in railing.
It seems common to have this thin "trough" on the edge of stairs. When we saw it in the subways of Paris it made sense beause they can easily wash the floor and have the water run down, but I do not know why this was a good choice here. An interesting detail, nonetheless.
I loved these huge donut, intertube things!
...and the windows were fun
Me in a tube
Looking out of my tube. I do not understand the strange yellow plastic thing on the ceiling
I do really like these light fixtures, though
This baby was having a great time just pushing buttons. I think that was honestly the intention of placing them there, too. The front of this machine is for self check-out
Fun hanging chairs
I had a little too much fun sitting in one
In the courtyard of the library was a cow statue
After the library we made dinner reservations and had about an hour to kill so walked along the river.
There was a free ferry to shuttle us to the other side. This is Kenny, Peter, Philip, and Saori.
My turn to be part of the picture
We had dinner. Mine was an excellent pesto and chicken pasta dish. They often use really wide noodles in Finland which are enjoyable despite sometimes being a little tricky to size into a bite instead of a mouthfull. After dinner, we went to a bar called "poro" which means reindeer in Finnish. The establishment was hilarious. Every surface possible was covered in fur - including the columns holding up the ceiling. That was the end of day one of "Finland West".
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