Art History With a Difference - Finlandia: the art and architecture of Helsinki - Anne Anderson

Visitors to Helsinki inevitably head to Senate Square to admire a unified ensemble of Neoclassical buildings created by Carl Ludvig Engel: the Lutheran Cathedral, Government Palace, University of Helsinki and National Library of Finland. The centre of the square is dominated by a statue to Czar Alexander II who envisioned a stylish modern capital along the lines of St. Petersburg. A grand duchy of the Russian Empire, until December 1917, Finland suffered Russification, an attempt, through the suppression of language and customs, of national identity. In response local architects developed a National Romantic style that expressed the unique spirit of the North. Dating to the turn of the 20th century, these buildings are also classified as Jugendstil, a northern manifestation of Art Nouveau. The fantastic Pohjola Insurance Building (1901) resembles a gigantic castle. The building is amusingly covered with dangerous beasts- wolves, bears and trolls- that it would be wise to insure against! In the famous Finnish epic, the Kalevala, Pohjola is the evil land of the North. It was the Kalevala and Karelianism that shaped Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Finland’s great symbolist painter and the music of Jean Sibelius. Both are credited with bolstering Finnish national identity in the face of Russian domination.

Tickets: £8.50.