1. the Dream of the Modern City

Modern Life! / Themes of the exhibition

1. The dream of the modern city

On attaining independence in 1917, Finland was an agricultural country with a low-rise and sparse building stock. But a world of metropolitan cities and skyscrapers was taking shape in writers' fantasies and on architects' drawing boards.

Brimming with self-confidence, the architect Eliel Saarinen entered the architectural competition for the Chicago Tribune newspaper offices in 1922, even though he had never visited the United States nor seen a genuine skyscraper. His competition success brought Finland international fame as a country of modern architecture.

Saarinen and, among others, Bertel Jungwere envisioning Helsinki developing into a metropolitan centre already in the 1910s, albeit without skyscrapers. Urbanisation in Finland only really began in the 1960s, and to this day the silhouette of Finland's cities has remained low-rise. The first actual skyscrapers are only now under construction.

2. Pioneers of the new age

In the 1920s modernity manifested itself in the city's illuminated advertising, in fast traffic and technology. The Tulenkantajat(Flame Bearers) group of artists extolled these in exhilarated texts.

Pioneers of photography experimented with a modern type of expression in picturing the city and other fashionable subjects such as the nude. In her studio, Emmi Fock immortalised notable society beauties, athletes and dancers.

There was a proliferation of illustrated magazines and advertising. Photography lured people into consuming, enjoying themselves and following fashion. Art and entertainment presented new gender roles and increasingly overt sensuality. The modern lifestyle and itsopen-minded worldview was adopted, however, only by a small group including artists and parts of the middle-class cultural set. Between the world wars Finland was still weighed down by social contradictions and the traumas of the Civil War, and conservative values ruled.

3. Launching the modern style

The pioneers of modernism in Finland, the Bohemian and artistic circles of the 1920s, felt at home in Turku. Helsinki seemed more conventional. Also Turkuhad good connections with Sweden,which opened "windows onto Europe".

The Finnish Trade Fair, which opened in Turku in June 1929, was marketed as acelebration of Finnish work. Pioneers of the new architecture, Alvar Aalto and Erik Bryggman, created a hitherto unseen modern look for the event. The fact that the buildings were temporary allowed for bold experimentation, and the architectstook the opportunity to make a stunning programmatic statement of the modern style.

During the trade fair the whole city pulsed with life. Finnish audiences experienced a functionalist milieu for the first time, andthe continental building style was much commented upon in the press.

In autumn 1929 the crashing of the New York Stock Exchange plunged the world into depression. The trade fair in Turku was later remembered as a grand affair whose equal could not be afforded for a long time to come.

4. Modern Finland onto the world map

Finland presented itself as a specifically modern country at the New York World's Fair in 1939. The Finnish exhibit was designed by Alvar Aalto together with his wife Aino Aalto. Built within a pavilion housingseveral countries' exhibits, the Finnish space centred around thecurving Auroral wall (Revontuliseinä), constructed fromplywood and wooden battens.

The World's Fairs attracted great international attention. They were about spreading and adopting innovations. The Finnish pavilion showcased the country's exports, its economy, its natural resources and its tourism. It attracted particular attention for its design and woodwork, from paper mill machinery to skis and bent plywood furniture. Finland's image was further strengthened in the exhibition by the film, Finland Calling (Suomi Kutsuu). The exhibition's success was unprecedented – the quirky exhibit from peripheral Finland became one of the Fair's most popular destinations.

5. Finnish maidens and sporting heroes

Independent Finland drew self esteem from its successes in international beauty and sports contests. In the 1920s the athletes Paavo Nurmi and Ville Ritola became national icons, as did Ester Toivonen, Europe's most beautiful woman in 1934, and Armi Kuusela, Miss Universe 1952.

Between the wars Wäinö Aaltonen achieved a position almost as the nation's sculptor. He produced much admired likenesses of significant personages and symbols of Finnishness. His nudes, whether Finnish maidens or the statue of Paavo Nurmi running, are exemplary of the culture of nudity of the 1920s with its emphasis on natural virtues.

One of the greatest sources of pride were the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. They became the nation's collective effort, the largest games thus far and, in terms of sporting achievement, the highest quality ones. The Olympics allowed Finland to become more international and to leave behind memories of war and material shortages.

6. Making a virtue of necessity: housing and so-called type houses

The swift rise of Finnish modernism was cut short in 1939 by the war. After the Winter and the Continuation Wars, 400,000 Finns were left homeless. New housing was needed quickly and cheaply. The solution came in the shape of so-called type houses, whose architectural drawings were free for everyone to use. Hundreds of thousands of single family homes were built, many known as warfront soldiers' houses. Usually they were erected as self build by work parties (talkoot).

What was modern about the so-called type houses was not so much the façade, as the method of construction and the composition of the internal space. Traditional log frame construction was replaced by a board clad structure filled with sawdust. Internal spaces were functionally arranged and everything was practical, nothing was superfluous.

Construction efficiency was increased through incipient serial production, the standardisation of the different elements and the streamlining of the entire construction process. During the course of the war, Finnish architects visited Germany - where modern efficiency had been developed to a peak - to learn about standardising and systematising.

7. The peak moments of modern design

Finnish design conquered the world in the 1950s. The glass works of Tapio Wirkkala, Timo Sarpaneva and Kaj Franck won international prizes, of which the most important was the Milan triennial. Around the world ceramics was also attracting prizes, developed particularly by women such as Toini Muona, Kyllikki Salmenhaara, Aune Siimes and Friedl Holzer-Kjellberg.

The streamlined forms of these objects, often abstracted from natural shapes, drew delight. Underlying success was also skilful marketing and astute use of connections. The designers were presented as stars. Photographs by Otso and Matti Pietinen also contributed to the impression of design objects as splendid art.

The Triennale spread the reputation of Finnish design around the world and promoted exports. The domestic markets for industrial design also benefited from overseas success.

8. The new shapes of the good life

Through the 1950s ever more Finns could afford things beyond basic necessities. Fed up with post-war rationing, people craved a fuller everyday life. Advertising images offered dreams of a modern life that was full of goods and where household technology freed up stay-at-home mothers to enjoy their spare time. The main forerunner in this field in Finland was Pietinen, the commercial photography firm.

Marimekko, founded in 1951, even made the housecoat into a desirable item, and at time when the ideal was the corset-bound waistline of a Hollywood starlets. The fashion photographs taken by K-G Roos for Marimekko captured the core of the democratic clothing revolution: clothes had to be practical and they had to suit all kinds of bodies. Vuokko and Marimekko garments became the signature clothing of the intelligentsia and cultural circles, carrying the message that here comes a pioneer of the modern life.

9. A late start for modernism in the visual arts

In Finland before the wars, the visual arts were expected to convey Finnish nationalism. International modernist currents only arrived in the 1930s, with a small progressive group spearheaded by Maire Gullichsen. It was only in the 1950s that geometric abstract works started to be consistently painted by artists such as Birger Carlstedt, Ernst Mether- Borgström and Sam Vanni.

In the early 1960s a more free form of abstract art, informalism, gained popularity. It was promoted particularly by members of the so-called March group, like Mauri Favén and Laia Pullinen. Informalism was seen as fundamentally Finnish in its closeness to nature and its primal power of expression. The works were experienced as spontaneous statements of emotion and they were more acceptable to the public than geometrical abstractions, which were seen as overly intellectual with their sharply drawn colour blocks.

Widespread acceptance of abstract art was a long time coming. Popular culture was merciless in ridiculing art that "even a child could produce".

10. Building the welfare state

The post-war baby boomers, born 1946-50, enjoyed a childhood and youth of economic growth and optimism. The national economy grew rapidly once Finland had paid its last war reparations in 1952. Public services were expanded and Finland developed along the lines of the Nordic welfare society.

The volume of public building was multiplied during the 1950s and 60s. Hospitals, churches, universities and in particular, schools, were needed. The aim was to make the new school buildings into egalitarian and pleasant learning environments. Novelties for schools in the 1950s included closeness to nature and a child-friendly scale. During the 1960s efficiency and flexible use of space became more popular, as in the Roihuvuori lower school designed by Arno Ruusuvuori (1967).

Art was commissioned to delight visitors to public buildings. Anitra Lucander's work was placed in the Roihuvuori lower school.

11. Urban visions: a city for people or for cars?

Urbanisation arrived late in Finland, only the 1960s, with the acceleration of the move away from rural areas into towns. The growth projections for urban populations and transport volumes were breathtaking. The old was torn down to clear up space for the new. Wooden houses in town centres had to give way to taller residential blocks and commercial space.

The city of Helsinki anticipated the future by commissioning a city centre plan from Alvar Aalto in 1959. Aalto worked on the vast project for over a decade. Ultimately only the Electric Building (Sähkötalo) and the Finlandia Hall were ever realized. Aalto's scheme tried to take account of all of the city's functions and to integrate them into a well-functioning whole. Those who gave absolute priority to traffic included the architectural firm Smith-Polvinen, whose vision, had it been realized, would have covered central Helsinki's in motorway ramps.

12. Conflicts over statues

For a long time in independent Finland, public sculpture was expected to be dignified, meant to enhance national sentiment. Public figures were to be honoured with sculpted portraits. Even mild forms of modernist experimentation raised passions. The memorial to the writer Topelius by Gunnar Finne (1928) was criticised because it took the form of an allegorical female figure rather than a likeness of its subject. Wäinö Aaltonen had to tone down his suggestion for a memorial statue to author Aleksis Kivi, as its Cubist look was considered too modern in 1930.

The prejudices triggered by many a statue project were crystallised in Kari Suomalainen's cartoons, which he started to do for the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat in 1950.

It was not until 1967 that Helsinki erected its first completely abstract memorial, the Sibelius monument by Eila Hiltunen. It was pioneering also in offering an auditory experience. Its abstract form, however, raised an enormous controversy, and as a compromise, the monument was given a separate, representational element, a sculpted head of Sibelius. The controversial set of organ pipes has become one of Helsinki's most popular tourist sights.

13. Finnish creativity as an export item

Finland's economic growth was visible at the world's fair in Montreal in 1967. Timo Sarpaneva made the Finnish exhibit into an artistic creation in space. It was dominated by five large sculptural reliefs hung dramatically at an angle. This exhibition includes two of them.

The Finnish exhibit showcased the newest of the new but it also nodded towards respected traditions. In her copper work, The Sun on the Fell, Laila Pullinen used new explosive techniques to realize it. Uhra-Beata Simberg-Ehrström's ryijy-rug, The Forest, combined traditional craft skills with modern design. Birger Kaipiainen's ceramic Sea of Violets was also included, as was the glasswork Pack Ice by Timo Sarpaneva and Tapio Wirkkala's plywood Ultima Thule.

The works and their materials symbolised Finland's export industries and its nature. By international comparison, Finland was less able to compete technologically or scientifically. Instead, immaterial strength was highlighted: Finnish creativity.

14. Finnish architecture conquers the world

Alongside Finnish design, in the 1950s its modern architecture also rose to international prominence. For example Reima Pietilä and Alvar Aalto took on commissions abroad and won international competitions.

One of the most significant international successes was the Toronto City Hall by Viljo Revell (1958- 65). His design was selected from among 520 proposals. Winning the biggest architectural competition of its time immediately made Revell an international star of architecture. The building itself became a much-loved symbol of the city of Toronto.

Looked at from above, the building is formed like an eye. The council chamber with its UFO -like shape is flanked by two curved office towers. The building's futuristic modernism was well suited to the emerging space age. A couple of decades later, it could still represent the architecture of the future, briefly seen as it was in the TV series and cartoon Star Trek12.