Helsinki doesn’t believe in Helsinki
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- Parent Category: Columns
- Category: Reader's letters
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19 Jan 2012
The year has started with two pieces of apparently very good news. Helsinki is bringing forward, albeit in different ways, two ambitious public projects: the Guggenheim Museum and the Central Library. These are two big and rare opportunities to create new gathering places, social and cultural magnets and, also, new faces of Helsinki to both its citizens and the world.
In my opinion, Helsinki does not believe in those projects and is not using them as cornerstones of Greater Helsinki. Why should these big and rare public buildings be squeezed into “the centre”? Helsinki is already polycentric, a city of networks and nodes. It is already too big to be considered as having just one centre. The city is constantly growing and new districts (Jätkäsaari, Kalasatama, Hernesaari etc.) are being built in prime locations. Why not use these important new public buildings to activate the new districts?
Do we think of Jätkäsaari as being part of the suburbs or part of the city centre? Do we really think that the new Central Library will be less used if it were three metro stops from the Central Railway Station and not just hidden behind it? Do we really think that if the Guggenheim were located in one of those new districts it would be too far away for tourists after they have travelled thousands of kilometres to come here? Not to mention that Jätkäsaari and Hernesaari are much closer to where the Baltic cruise ships dock than Katajanokka.
Let’s learn from examples like the National Library in Paris and the new Opera House in Oslo; both public buildings built far from the historical centre and both able to thrive in those areas with just their activity and flow of people (plus they have even been able to increase those neighbourhoods’ €/m2 value).
The Guggenheim and the Central Library are powerful and rare cornerstones that are able to activate a district and to increase its value, both socially and economically. Let’s dare to build a new, better and Greater Helsinki!
Francesco Allaix
