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159. Historia urbana de Helsinki — Transcript · YTtoTranscript

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159. Historia urbana de Helsinki

Alberto Garin · 3,162 words · 16 min read · EN

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Below is the complete, readable transcript of 159. Historia urbana de Helsinki by Alberto Garin on YouTube. Read the full text, copy any part you need, or generate a transcript for any video with our free tool.

[Music] Sierra de historias with Alberto Garín. Helsinki is the northernmost capital city in continental Europe and also the coldest. Helsinki might not be the first destination a tourist would think of for a leisure trip. And yet, the capital of Finland is one of the cities in whose urban layout, in whose development we can most easily understand the history of

this unique country, Finland. A history that has been marked by relations with its large neighbor, Russia. That Russia that wanted to conquer Finland for centuries until it succeeded at the beginning of the 19th century, and from then on maintained a relationship of Lord Basallo that was to last until the end of the Cold War, the only

time in which Finland finally managed to free itself from the tutelage of the Russians. All these historical vicissitudes are clearly marked in the urban planning and architecture of the city of Helsinki, in a way that is also uniquely sharp and clear, as can rarely be seen in a city. And that makes visiting Helsinki not only an

opportunity to discover a city with a number of interesting attractions, but above all the best way to immerse yourself in the history of Finland. The best way, because I insist, there will be few cities in the world that present an urban evolution and real estate development that marks history. with such crystal clarity as we

can see in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Although human occupation of Finland dates back more than 10,000 years before the present day with peoples arriving from the east and south of the Gulf of Finland, its leap into history occurred in the High Middle Ages. Interestingly, when the region fell under the influence of peoples

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from the west, first the Vikings who arrived from Norway around the 9th and 10th centuries, but especially when the Swedes colonized and Christianized the southern coast of Finland from the mid- 11th century, the episcopal city of Turcu was established, which for centuries would be the capital of the Finnish territory dominated by Sweden.

A dominion that was challenged by the Russians from the 11th century and for five centuries until in 1809 the already known Grand Duchy of Finland passed into the hands of the Tsar of Russia. At that time the capital was moved from Turku to Helsinki, a coastal town that was closer to St. Petersburg, in the tsars' eagerness to

control the Finns. Helsinki had emerged around 1550 as a landing place within the effort to dominate trade routes in the Gulf of Finland. It was established in an inland port on the southern Finnish coast, a terribly rugged coast with numerous bays and islands, in addition to countless inland lakes. Helsinki's location was especially protected. Originally, it was

located on the Kururunhakaa peninsula, where the main buildings from the Tsarist era are located. To the north was the Tolalti bay, now divided into different salt lakes by the construction of dikes for the railway or roads, in addition to another sector having been drained for contemporary constructions. To the southeast is the island of Catajanotka,

where the Orthodox cathedral is located. To the southwest is the Uyanlinna peninsula, home to the design district, which was once an island until the channel separating it from the city was filled in, where the popular Esplanadi avenue is located today. In front of this cluster of small bays and islands surrounding the original Helsink, to the south there were many other

islands protecting the entrance to the port, including Suomenlina, where the main fortification defending the city was built. Its home was built from 1748 onwards by the Kingdom of Sweden in order to curb Russian expansionism through the Gulf of Finland. Tsar Peter I had founded the city of St. Petersburg in 1703 as part

of his endeavor to advance towards the Baltic Sea. In 1713, during the Great Northern War that took place between 1700 and 1721, the Russian armies attacked Helsinki. The Swedish commander of the stronghold, unable to defend it, decided to set it on fire, which is why there are practically no remains in present-day Helsinki

prior to the second half of the 17th century. The Great Northern War ended in 1721 with the Treaty of Nistaz, which consolidated the Russian presence on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, although most of Finland remained under Swedish rule. But Russian ambitions did not stop there, and between 1741 and 1743 the Russo-Swedish War took place, which

concluded with the incorporation of new territories northwest of St. Petersburg into Russia. It was then that the Basques decided to build Suomenlina Castle from 1748 onwards to defend the port of Helsinki and above all as the main stronghold against any advance of the Russian fleet from St. Petersburg. The works were delayed for half a

century and in the end proved inefficient, because when in 1808 Tsar Alexander I, at that time an ally of Napoleon Bonaparte, declared war on Sweden, he sent his troops on Helsinki and bombarded the Suomenlina fort, which surrendered immediately in May of that year. In 1809, as we said before, Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire and

Suomenlina remained as the fortress that was to defend the entrance to Helsinki. Its fortifications were renovated and even at the end of the 20th century its artillery was improved in view of the escalating warfare that led to the First World War. In 1917, Finland achieved its independence, although a civil war broke out between

January and May 1918, between the Reds, supporters of the Bolshevik revolution, and the Whites, who aspired to a Finland aligned with the liberal democracies of the time. The Whites were victorious and Isomenlina was temporarily converted into a concentration camp. for the defeated reds. During World War II, Suomenlina regained its military value in

the confrontation between Finland and the Soviet Union. The Soviet victory led to the fortification being dismantled until it was handed over to the civilian authorities in 1973. Since then, it has been developed as a tourist site, a restoration that earned it the designation of a World Heritage Site in 1991. Beyond the vicissitudes of its past, what

we must remember is that this fortification always had the strategic value of being the natural closure of Helsinki Bay, along with the other numerous islands that formed that natural harbor that was Krunurunja, where, as we said before, the main buildings from the Tsarist era are located because we have seen how Helsinki was born

as a small coastal town around 1550, a situation that was not to change significantly when it was burned down in 1713 by the Swedish commander of the city. From then on, its reconstruction did not significantly change its traditional form. The main square was located southeast of the current Senate Square, as reflected in

Helsinki's oldest building, the Sederholm House, dating from 1757. Therefore, it was an open square overlooking the city's harbor. From there on, the street layout was quite irregular. When the Russians invaded Finland in the spring of 1808, Helsinki suffered another fire that destroyed a large part of the city. In 1812, already within the Russian Empire,

Helsinki was converted into the capital of Finland and an ambitious reconstruction project was launched, completely remaking its layout, a project established by Johann Albreg Erstrom, a notable Finn who wanted to follow the neoclassical urban fashions of the second half of the 17th century, with the characteristics of the Russian world, where gigantic dimensions were used.

The new main square, the Senate Square, was located further northwest than the previous one, separating it from the coast, thus consolidating its urban value over the port value. From there, large, very wide avenues were laid out, guaranteeing lighting, ventilation and traffic flow. The construction of the square and its buildings was entrusted to the

Prussian architect Carl Ludwig Engel, who had come to work in St. Petersburg before being sent to Helsinki. To the east of the square, Engel erected the Senate building, completed by 1820. To the west, the university building, completed by 1832, and to the north, on the summit of this Kurunjaca mound, the Lutheran cathedral, completed by 1852.

From there, the rest of the sector would be articulated through large blocks that characterize the entire historical part of the city, this one of Kurunjaca, but also the Uyanlina peninsula, now known as the Design District, or the island of Catajanotka, the one with the Orthodox Cathedral. Large city blocks that have been put to good

use in a city like Helsinki, where the extremely cold climate that dominates much of the year forces people to spend a lot of time indoors. And in these blocks, all kinds of shops, restaurants and other services have been set up, like small, secluded neighborhoods, contrasting with the sparse life found on the main avenues and the

activity that can be fostered within these blocks. We have been producing our history and art history outreach programs through Sierra de Historias for several years. And we have achieved this thanks to the support of all of you who have regularly become viewers of our videos. We would like to be able to continue doing so, and

for that reason I am asking for your support today. I'm going to ask those of you who haven't already to subscribe to our channel, so you can stay up to date with the new productions we're adding. I'm also inviting those who can help us financially to become members of Sierra de Historias, because

that's the best way to ensure we can continue our work, where our commitment to historical dissemination, in which art is fundamental, is paramount. That 's the key. I know many of you appreciate this work and I know you will be able to make that effort so that I can thank you in advance. And

now let's continue enjoying our mountain of stories. As we said before, the regular layout of New Helsinki extended along the three sides of the bay where the port is located . Although the actual urbanization of the different sectors did not occur immediately. A good example is what, as we have said, we know today as the

design district, Uyanlina, southwest of the Senate area, from which it was separated by a flood zone. where Engel himself created a beautiful park, the Esplanadi, as early as 1812, a park that is now the heart of the city. By the first half of the 19th century, Uyanlina still had a military function as the site of

Helsinki's last defenses, although it very quickly became a residential area with elegant parks such as Caibo Puisto and notable villas that can be seen upon entering the harbor. However, most of Uyan Lina was built with historicist buildings from the late 19th or modernist buildings from the early 20th, clearly showing Helsinki's own evolution.

After filling in the Krunjaka hill, the next areas of growth in Helsinki were this Uyanlina neighborhood, along with the Orthodox cathedral area, something that is easy to verify with a simple walk around the city observing the stylistic variation of its buildings. [Music] The last neighborhood to close this historic center was where the train station was located

, northwest of Krununjaca and south of Tolonlati Bay. The station was already operational by 1862, although the current one is the work of Eliel Saarinen, who finished it in 1919, one of the most beautiful buildings in Helsinki. This neighborhood was enclosed to the south by the Finnish Art Museum, the Ateneum, built by Theodor Heiger in

the historicist style and completed in 1887. The Ateneum deserves a whole series of stories, because despite having a relatively limited art collection , it has the virtue of having brought together the different European artistic movements developed from the 16th century to the present day. Once these sectors that now make up the historic center of

Helsinki were consolidated, the city grew westward, for which the Clubin Lati bay had been filled in. From the beginning of the 19th century, it formed the Campi neighborhood, which for a long time was a humble residential area, as well as being the site of the Turku barracks with one of the main garrisons

of the city. From the 1930s onwards, Campi underwent a general renovation, which would be consolidated after the Second World War within the forms of the international style, with buildings with open floor plans, free facades, continuous windows, with smaller proportions or the change of traditional materials, especially brick, for concrete and glass. A similar process took place in the neighborhood

north of Campi, Toolo, located on a natural hill where there may have been a small village since the 15th century, although it remained a predominantly rural area until the beginning of the 20th century. It was then that an urban planning scheme was established in 1906, the work of architects Gustav Nistrom and Lars Sonk.

The idea was to develop a residential area to accommodate the population growth that Helsinki was experiencing. By the 1930s, numerous buildings had been erected in the usual historicist styles, constructed of brick. However, the most significant construction was the parliament, built on the edge of the neighborhood overlooking Tolonlati Bay. Built between 1926 and 1931, a

work by John Sigfri Siren. After the Second World War, the development of this residential plan continued, although now within the forms of the international style, but creating large buildings with many apartments per building, showing a repetitive rationality that resembled solutions typical of the Soviet world. Let us remember that after the Second World War, Finland, although it remained

a neutral country between the capitalist and communist blocs, had its international policy overseen by the Soviet Union. a guardianship that was also evident in Finnish cultural creations such as these apartment blocks in Toolo. However, the most significant construction of this entire period from the Cold War era was the Stone Church, Tempeliaukio, already planned in 1930, but which was not

put into operation until after the Second World War. In 1961 a competition was held to build this temple, which was to be constructed by excavating the hill overlooking the Toolo neighborhood. The competition was won by architects Timo and Tuomo Suomarinen, who completed the work in 1969. It was conceived as a Lutheran parish,

the dominant branch of Christianity in Finland. It was soon also used as a concert hall or for community events, that combination of religious and social purposes that fit well within the Finnish spirit of the Cold War, where it was a matter of conveying an aseptic image, without exaggerating any aspect, not even that of the majority of its

believers. By the 1970s, Helsinki already seemed like a consolidated city. However, in the center of the city there remained a unique void to the northwest of the Senate hill, south of the Tolonlati bay, possibly an area flooded by the bay itself which may explain the absence of buildings until very recently. Moreover, the most significant

contemporary building erected in Helsinki is here, the ODI library. Completed in 2018, this library, designed by Ala Architects, shares a gigantic plaza with other very significant buildings, all of them modern in the history of Helsinki, and shows how this area was urbanized very recently. To the north of the esplanade is the Finlandia Hall, the most outstanding work of Al

bar a Alto in Helsinki, completed in 1971 and which was the first nod towards the modernity that dominated the Western world in contrast to the Soviet cultural tutelage that Finland had suffered in the years following the Second World War. Below you can see the Music Museum, completed in 2011, a work by the

LPR studio which, like the ODI library, showcases a Finland completely open to the contemporary world. Behind the Music Museum, on a small hill, is the Finnish Parliament, which we mentioned earlier on the elevated edge of the Too neighborhood, a parliament built decades before this large esplanade was cleaned up. Finally, this large esplanade is enclosed

by the Kiasmach Museum of Contemporary Art , a work by Steven Hall, completed in 1998. Helsinki is not a city that usually attracts the attention of visitors and tourists, nor of specialists in the history of urbanism and architecture, apart from following in the footsteps of Alvar Altó, the most distinguished Finnish architect, who nevertheless has a

small body of work in Helsinki, the Finlandia Hall being the most notable. The harshness of its climate for most of the year doesn't help either, as it makes walking its streets uncomfortable beyond the refuge offered by those interiors of the blocks we have seen and, of course, the numerous restaurants and cafes that populate the

city. However, as we have tried to show throughout this video, few cities offer themselves to your understanding in such a clean and immediate way as Helsinki. From its geographical location at the bottom of a bay well protected by a barrier of islands, to its definitive establishment in times of the Aztec conquest around the Krununjaka,

imprinting that Russian character that dominates a good part of the city. Then came an initial modernist historicist growth at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, clearly marked in neighborhoods like Uyan Llina, later giving way to the international style with Soviet influences that we can observe in Campi Oolo.

And with the end of the Cold War, the most recent constructions, especially from the late 20th and early 21st centuries, when Finland was finally able to take off after freeing itself from the omnipresent Soviet tutelage. Helsinki, we insist, is a city that is relatively easy to understand and get to know . It is true that to do so it is

necessary to know the intricacies of Finnish history and thus understand, for example, why all the place names are written in Finnish, but also in Swedish. Or why in the main square of the city, a Finland always fearful of Russia when not clearly enemies, paid homage to a Russian tsar, Alexander II, as one of the

fundamental figures of Finnish history, especially of that development of the second half of the 19th century reflected in its historicist architecture. Because in the long run, understanding a city, one of the most complex creations of any human society, allows us to understand the inevitable historical contradictions of those human societies. [Music] Do

you want to join the Sierra de Historias community? Click the join button, support us with your contribution and become a member of our channel. [Music] Do

you want to join the Sierra de Historias community? Click the Join button, support us with your contribution and become a member of our channel. [Music]