01 Dec 2009, Posted by Pedro Feduchi in Guests from Madrid, 0 Comments

Helsinki, forever

What luck! I like nothing better than getting to know a great city for the first time. If, in addition, it is an intense and stimulating city it becomes an unforgettable experience which will last forever.

Arrivals are disconcerting, current means of transport are universal, that is they are too alike everywhere. The airport, luggage collection, sliding doors which open onto the hall where emotional reunions with family and friends take place or frosty receptions among those who are unknown and who identify themselves with timidly hand held signs. On leaving, you begin by trawling through what is distant at the same time as discovering what is near. One or other stimulus overlap and intermingle without limiting your impressions. These take time; they arrive rapidly and are transformed as you receive the new stimulus, as you discover new things. Each person has their own methods, their own keys to obtain results which allow the creation of a new idea. It is always difficult to articulate a speech, it comes out clumsily and lacking precision. What is Helsinki like?

At the time of writing, a few days have already passed since we travelled there and my memories are less clear, they have lost the gloss but have gained a conciseness. Helsinki cannot deny that it is a northern city, but for me, living in one of the most southern capitals of Europe, it was comforting to see that in September it was still warm and close. It is not so different from other northern cities that I know, including those from my own country. The first thing that I liked is its geographical position, something which the cities share with personality. In Helsinki, the exchanging views which the boulevards and streets force us to take in are found with water from the bay, with small hills full of trees, with islands and rocks. Bridges are crossed entering and exiting forests, the areas change, they follow one another. Modern architectural blocks of glass and metal are transformed in residential areas with delicate Art Nouveau decorations. The buildings emerge separated from each other creating a series of different urban densities. Just as the geography where the inhabitants settled, Helsinki has an architecture which comes together discontinuously, such as the islands in the sea or the forests between granite outcrops.

That granite is the stone seen everywhere. A grey granite with rose tones which are sometimes almost scarlet. Many of its buildings used it and in this way they became mimetic with their environment. Others, however, preferred brick, causing the sober pinks to be transformed into dark and powerful reds, an epithelial contrast not only chromatic but also in matter, strength and porosity. Among them are other softer colours, those clear tones of plaster and stucco, soft like white which is also abundant in this city. Colours which appear on façades, covering and surrounding, outlining windows, profiling carpentry. They aim to attract the light which is missing during the long winters; they want to imitate the snow which covers everything. Then there are greens, deep and light, many and varied which are linked to ornaments and decorations and which climb the windows to reach the roofs of matt copper or glass tiles.

I found it admirable that the Helsinki inhabitants have been able to maintain with normality the same principles in construction as exists in their geography. A way of making current a building, a medium and a climate which have nothing in common. A city which succeeded in captivating me forever.