van
Current Location:
nashville, Tennessee
Sweden/Finland Study tour
March 24-29, 2019
Rough Start to Stockholm:
8:23 am - train leaves from Copenhagen Central Station for Stockholm
9:45 am - train stops in the middle of nowhere
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Sunday - Our train ended up with some kind of engine problem, so after an hour of waiting on the tracks we heard that another train was coming to get us. There were already people on the train that stopped for us, but I thought we would just fill in the empty seats, not a big deal. Nope! The train was way too full and 100 or more of us had to sit or stand in the aisle for the rest of the 4 hour train ride, not the best start to study tour at all.
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We got to Stockholm 8 hours later, checked into the hotel, and went to our first site visit - Kulturhuset. Kulturhuset is a public building for cultural events, activities and art, but we found out that it was closed sadly. So, we went to the next site - Gamla Stan or the Old Town. This area was the original center of Stockholm, so it was a good historical site to start off our trip. We went back to the hotel after dinner, and I hoped that the next day was going to be a lot better than today. So everything was going great until the fire alarm went off at 3:30 in the morning, and we had to evacuate the hotel. Fire trucks showed up and we stayed outside until 4:15 when they finally let us back inside. I managed to get another solid 3 hours of sleep before breakfast in the morning.
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Monday - We started the day at Hammarby Sjostad neighborhood to learn about its sustainable urban design. Then we took a short ferry to another island of Stockholm to SoFo, which was inspired by New York's SoHo. It was kind of dead on a Monday morning, so I didn't see a close relation to SoHo, but there were some cool shops and places to eat. After SoFo we had some free time and I was super excited to see the ABBA Museum (PSA: they're making a comeback later this year). The museum was so fun and had karaoke, games, and displays of everything ABBA related. We met back up with the class at the Woodland Cemetery for a guided tour of Sigurd Lewerentz and Gunnar Asplund's massive work for Stockholm. We saw the inside of 3 different chapels by Lewerentz and Asplund and learned about the process behind designing this extremely large space. Dinner on Monday was at a place called a Boule Bar. Boule is a game where you throw a ball across a lane and try to get as close to a marker as you can (kind of like bocce ball). After dinner, we had a Boule competition between our class and it was actually really fun and got pretty competitive.
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Tuesday - On our last day in Stockholm we visited one of Stockholm's most notable buildings, the Stockholm Public Library by Asplund. It was a cool opportunity to view the library before visiting the In Praise of Shadows office, because the office was currently working on a proposal for the expansion of the Public Library. Our final site was the Fotografiska center for contemporary photography which was right next to our overnight ferry. I've never visited a photography center or museum, so I enjoyed it more than I thought. There were 3 exhibitions by Jesper Waldersten, Alison Jackson, and Anja Neimi. Waldersten's exhibit was more personal and dark, Jackson's was more of a comical statement, and Neimi's was more self-reflective and and emotional. I personally liked Neimi's exhibition focused on beauty and the construction of femininity in society the most.
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After the Fotografiska, it was time for the overnight ferry woohoo
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Train to Stockholm
Not a fire drill
Woodland Chapel
Fotografiska
Stockholm Public Library
In Praise of Shadows Office
ABBA Museum
Overnight Ferry to Turku:
The rooms were so so so small, but we were only on the boat for one night. The boat ride was a lot wavier than I expected, and I was surprised no one ended up getting sea sick. If you haven't heard, the overnight ferries between Scandinavian countries are also sometimes known as "booze cruises" because the buffet on the boat also includes wine/beer on tap. The idea sounded fun, but the a lot of the places on the ferry closed at 10 pm so there wasn't all that much to see. Also, we had to wake up at 5 am Swedish time because of the time difference in Finland.
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Wednesday - We got to Turku around 7:30 Finnish time and went straight on the bus towards our next 3 sites. First, we visited St. Henry's Ecumenical Art Chapel that was shaped like an upside down ship on top of a hill. From there, we drove to Chapel of the Holy Cross and enjoyed some solid sketching time. Our final site visit before heading to Helsinki was one of Aalto's earlier works - the Piamio Sanatorium. This was the most interesting site of the day, because it was like a preview of Aalto before heading to Helsinki to see more of his works. The Sanatorium was used for tuberculosis patients, and the interior and furniture were designed specifically by Alvar and Aino Alto for the building.
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We headed towards Helsinki after a quick stop for lunch in the middle of Finland
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Ferry leaving Stockholm
Chapel of the Holy Cross
St. Henry's Ecumenical Art Chapel
Helsinki:
We checked into our hotel around 5 pm and walked to the Senate Square. At the Square, you can see the connection between Finland and Russia and the influence by St. Petersburg. Our last site of the day was the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum was pretty small, but I really liked the streamlined size of the exhibition spaces and the exhibits themselves. The Stage is Yours exhibition was probably the most memorable because it was a participatory exhibit, and it was fun to see people on our tour participate in these artworks that asked them to do some pretty crazy things.
Thursday - The day started with a visit to the Loyly Helsinki sauna and a tour by the architect himself from Avanto Architects. We were having dinner and using the sauna later that night so it was cool to hear about its design and location choice beforehand. The inside looked so relaxing and beautiful, so I was excited to get an authentic sauna + ice plunge experience. Next, we saw the Helsinki University Main Library and the Public Library. The Helsinki University library had these repetitive elliptical staircases that were actually very useful to study for my second studio project. We separated for lunch after the libraries and regrouped to ride the bus to Saunalahti School. The school was incredible I could see why the Finnish education system is so famous and highly ranked. I was surprised to learn that this was a public school and to hear about all of the clubs and resources they had for students. There was an entire woodshop room and so many design technologies for students to use, and I honestly wished that I had those in school when I was growing up. The emphasis on art and design was something that I noticed was drastically different between Finnish and American Schools. After the school we drove to the Espoo Museum of Modern Art (EMMA) that is housed in the old Weilin&Goos printing house. The WeeGee houses the EMMA's collection along with 4 other museums, a restaurant, and school. This site was a good example of adaptive re-use and my favorite exhibitions were Alicja Kwade's Trans-for-men and Bryk & Wirkkala's Aukio. Kwade's exhibit showed motion and metamorphosis through the sequential transformation of objects in 5 different installations, and Aukio actually functioned as a display space, a storage space, and a conservation space.
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After the museum, it was time for dinner and the sauna. I was actually really excited to try the ice bath in the Baltic sea. So the process kind of goes like this - you sit in the sauna for about 15 minutes until you get too warm, then you walk/run (I chose to run) outside to the freezing cold Baltic sea, jump in, swim for as long as you can, go back the sauna, and repeat! I can't tell if it was awful or fun or both, but it was definitely an true Finnish experience.
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Friday - The final day of the long study tour had a tour of Alvar Aalto's home and Studio Aalto. Visiting Aalto's home was so cool. Almost every part of the house down to the furniture and light fixtures was designed by him, Aino, or Elisa Aalto with a specific purpose in mind, and being able to see it function together all in one place was amazing. Down the street from his house, Aalto built a studio to house his growing office. The building is now used by the Alvar Aalto Foundation, and we were able to get a guided tour of the studio. The Aalto sites wrapped up all of our site visits for the tour, so we boarded the tram for our final group lunch! But, it wouldn't be an interesting enough trip if we didn't have one more public transport incident. Right after we got on the tram, a car hit the side of it and we all had to get off and take a different tram. It wasn't a serious accident at all, but it was another funny story to tell when we got back to Copenhagen.
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Parliament Building
Helsinki Cathedral at Senate Square
Loyly Helsinki Sauna
WeeGee
Alvar Aalto House
Aalto Living Room
Aalto Studio
Overview:
I enjoyed the trip despite all of the bad luck we had with the train, the fire alarm, and the tram accident. I think I preferred Helsinki more than Stockholm for the site visits and city life. The only thing I didn't expect was being so tired from this trip. We woke up early everyday and had a jam-packed schedule most of the time. I was glad we got back on Friday and that I could sleep in on Saturday. I also liked the group meals we had together, but I know some people with food allergies or restrictions found them less appealing. A little more variety in food options would've been better. We had a lot of the same types of food a few meals in a row, so it wasn't great if someone didn't like something. Overall, it was an eventful and memorable trip, and I was glad I got to experience it.