sign of the bootmaker’s house in Luostarinmaki, the‘wooden houses’ museum in Turku
We probably could have spent another day in Helsinki, there are lots of other places to admire, too. But the weather forecast for Turku, in the west of the country, was much better. And Turku is only two hours away.
street in Luostarinmaki, with wooden houses
a courtyard in the museum
The reason to come to Turku is the ‘wooden houses’ museum, also called Luostarinmaki (you will agree that ‘wooden houses’ museum is a lot easier – Finnish is an impossible language!). This is a neighbourhood of some 80 houses, divided across 14 courtyards, that survived the Great Fire of 1827 that burned down the rest of Turku. More remarkable even, it subsequently survived the pressure of speculators and property developers, who would have rather torn down the houses and built apartments, or offices. Good they didn’t, the Luostarinmaki is a delightful museum full of 200 year old houses in their original location. In many of the houses rooms have been arranged after the original crafts of the inhabitants, whether boot maker or saddle maker, copper smith or circus artist.
another wooden house
wooden window
artefacts in a barn in the museum
and the wheel of the fire engine
saddle maker’s room
and the drum of the circus artists
Art Nouveau house in Turku
For the rest Turku is not a very special town. The centre has its occasional Art Nouveau building, but nothing compared to Helsinki, and most of the other construction is more modern, and non-descript. It has its main church, a huge Gothic-like building, impressively empty inside. And it has a river that flows through the town centre, and supports a couple of party boats with bars and restaurants, and a river park. And just the day we were in town happened to be an important day for students, who flocked the bars and the parks, dressed in conspicuously colourful trousers, adorned with a variety of stickers and labels. As it turned out, the colour of the outfit depends of the faculty you are studying at, and for the rest it is a free for all. A bit like carnival, really, complete with increasing inebriation into the evening. But colourful it was, and good fun, or so it appeared.
the Turku cathedral
lots of windows in the tower
and inside pretty bare, like a good Lutheran church
a modern building at the entrance of town
the party boats on the river
students of the ‘red’ faculty
another group of students
all of them having fun, and it is only the afternoon
preferred means of transport
a graffiti wall at a parking lot
the Saint Henry chapel
with a simple work of art outside
Just outside Turku is the ultra-modern St. Henry’s Ecumenical Art Chapel, built in 2005. Officially it only opens at 11 am – everything in Finland opens late -, but luckily by the time we got there, much earlier, the door was already open, and the caretaker didn’t mind us getting in. This is a spectacular building. I know I have said this before in previous blogs, but this chapel beats a lot of earlier spectacular buildings. The outside is simple, basic, a copper-covered structure that hardly looks like a chapel. The inside is fabulous, in its simplicity, wooden arches support the ceiling, windows let in the light in the front near the altar, decoration is almost absent, or it must be a basic cross with a key, or one single, modern icon of Mary. And best of all, we were the only ones inside, having beaten the tourist busses by at least an hour.
Next: Rauma
but really, you come to the chapel for the inside
