Monday, October 5, 2009

Favourite Buildings Visited - Seurasaari, Finland...


Seurasaari (direct translation from Finnish - Company/ Companionship Island) isn't strictly a building, but a collective of traditional Finnish, usually wooden, buildings gathered onto an island on the outskirts of Helsinki. They range in age from late 1600 to early 20th century. Currently the island, classified as an open-air museum, contains approximately 85 buildings assembled from all around the country. Visiting Seurasaari (Fölisö in Swedish) has become an annual event for me and my family, which with its clusters of buildings and animals (the island is also the home of sheep, red-squirrels, swans, and very loud and arrogant seagulls) contains an unique ambiance particular to this place. The interiors of the buildings hold a special attraction, usually made of a tight-knitted cluster of rooms, which are filled with a subtly paced, saturated light, that gets caught, and slowed down, by the porous, often ash gray, log walls. In quality the light of these spaces carry the mien of Vermeer, and the immersed shadows of Tanizaki...

The sequentially covered pedestrian bridge connecting the island to the mainland...

A food storage hut from the north of Finland (Lapland)...

A small house in the traditional red and white so common to the Nordic countries...

Above and below - A wooden church and a detail (candle-holder) from its interior...


Above and below - A few residential interiors...

Above - A pair of shoes made out of weaved tree bark...


Above and below - Examples of domestic paraphernalia...


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