Made by:

Mari Salminen

Lotta Vuorinen

Kirsi Muhli

Anna Partanen

Tuija Heikkilä

Hollolan lukio, Finland

Right from the start Finland’s railways were built mainly by the government, though there were some private tracks. From the point of view of architecture, this resulted in great uniformity and early adoption of standard plans. With the exception of Helsinki, most of the stations even in busy towns belong to the one-sided type, to which access is provided by under passes. Throughout, the main material used was wood with the logs laid horizontally in the traditional style. Only the biggest stations were made of stone (brick, concrete).

Finland’s first railway line was built in 1857-62 between Helsinki and Hämeenlinna. The stations for it were designed by Carl Albert Edelfelt, who was then the official architec of Häme province. In architecture, they reflected in change in style going on in the 1840s, a process of breaking free from the classicism and empire style dominant at the beginning of the century. Edelfelt’s stations reflected the new picturesque eclecticism, marked by a asymmetrical grouping of volumes and detail borrowed from several styles. They combined features of the Neo-Renaissance, Neo-Gothic and Swiss styles. Patterns can be found for them in both the romantic classicism of Germany and the Neo-Gothic of Britain. Possibly Edelfelt was also influenced by St. Petersburg.

The period during which Edelfelt designed for the Finnish railways can be viewed as one of experimentation, seeking a model for the Finnish station. The experiments continued along the track build in 1868-70 between Riihimäki and St.Petersburg, where several other kinds of station were tried out, to designs by several architects. From this period onwards, the standard Finnish station began to be a symmetrical one-storey building with a cetral open verandah richly decorated with carving. One of the first examples of this type was Viipuri station, possibly influenced by St.Peterburg`s Finland station, decigned by P.Kupinsky. Most of the stations along the new line were designed by Knut Nylander, who had been trained by Edelfelt and worked as his assistant on the Helsinki-Hämeenlinna track. The adoption of standard plans by the Finnish railways began with these designs by Nylander.

After the Riihimäki-St.Petersburg line was completed a stage of what could be called standardization began in Finnis raiway architecture, based on the Neo-Renaissance style. New stations were built to Nylander`s designs and sketches, which the railway engineers gradually simplified into more stereotyped standards. The same plans were used without alteration on many sections of the system, sometimes reversed into a mirror image for the sake of the variety. The standard features were a symmetrical one-storey building with an open verandah in front, strips of panelling, pilasters and Neo-Renaissance weatherboarding. Gradually, even the open verandah shrank to nothing during this stage, leaving behind in many stations of the 1880s nothing but a pattern of strips and pilasters flush with the wall. This stage of Neo-Renaissance style and standardization of the Finnish railways lasted nearly twenty years, i.e. from the 1870s until the 1890s.

Once the National Romantic style began to affect the basically Neo-Renaissance architecture of the 1890s, there was also a change in railway architecture. The break away from the old standardized plans was made possible by the fact that a permanent architect was engaged by the railways for the first time: Bruno F. Granholm. The standardized plan were still used, of course, but they began to be dominated by National Romantic elements reflecting influence not only from ancient Finnish features but also from Norwegian wooden architecture, old Swedish traditions and the Swiss style. One of the most typical of these stations is in Jyväskylä, built in 1896-98.

The peak of the National Romantic era only lasted just under ten years, and elements of Art Nouveau were soon mixed into it. The end of this period was partly brought about by the Helsinki station planning competition in 1904. All the winning entries were examples of heavy National Romantic stone architecture, also Eliel Saarinen’s, which won first prize. The competition gave rise to keen public debate, in which element borrowed from traditional Finnish architecture were condemned as out of plance in a building for such a modern means of transport. It was partly because of this criticism that Saarinen gradually altered his designs, in the end leaving nothing National Romantic in them at all.

The same year a competition was held for Viipuri station, and not only the competing architects and jury, but also the actual sprit of the entries were largely the same as in the Helsinki station competition. Once again the winner was Eliel Saarinen, though the eventual plans were produced by Herman Gesellius.

Echoes of the National Romantic and Art Nouveau styles could be detected well into the 20th century, though elements of Classicism did begin to emerge in the 1910s. In the ’20s railway architecture was in fact dominated by Classicism, with its pilasters and triangular gables. A comparison with other architecture of the time shows that whereas influences of the Italian architecture and Ostrobothnian farmhouses were elegantly compined elsewhere, the railway stations of the day show more Finnish Gustavian features and early 19th century throwbacks, mixed together repetitiously and somewhat clumsily.

Elements of Classicism continued to be found in architecture even into the ’30s, when the stations reflected something of a restrained transition to Functionalism. In 1934 a competition was held for Tampere station, and in this Functionalism made its real breakthrough in railway architecture. No first prize was awarded, but there were two second prizes. The architects placed in the highest class included Alvar Aalto, Hilding Ekelund and Aulis and Pauli E. Blomstedt. The commission was awarded to the authors of an entry actually only purchased in the competition, O. Flodin in and Eero Seppälä. Their design is dominated by a cubiform central station hall, and the front by a huge square window.

The only other plance where a large Functionalist station was built was Turku, where the building was designed in 1939 by Väinö Vähäkallio. Turku station was the last purely Functionalistic station, and also the last big station planned solely to serve rail traffic.

There has been almost no research in Finland into the relationship of the station to the townscape. However, it would seem that the line was usually laid to the outskirts of the town and little attention was given to townscaping aspects; the use of standardized plans was not conducive to this, either. Gradually, as the towns spread in the 20th century, the stations found themselves actually in the middle of the urban stucture, and when the time came to rebuild the ones in the biggest cities townscaping did come more to the fore. A good example here is Tampere.

A study of the stylistic aspect of stations reveals that new trends reached railway architecture quickly, though stations never spearheaded developments. In big competitions avantgardist designs rarely won prizes, but once the competition was over more progressive alterations were possible: in the case of Saarinen, for instance, his Helsinki railway station came to be one of his main works. On the whole, indeed, we can say that Finland’s stations attained a high standard as representatives of their own era and style.

References

Hausen, Mikkola, Amberg, Valto: Eliel Saarinen, Suomen aika.

Otava 1990

Högström, Hilkka: Helsingin Rautatieasema/ Helsinki Railway Station.

VR-yhtymä oy 1996

Nieminen, Puntari, Immonen: Vauhtia ja voimaa, Valtionrautatiet 1862-1987

Kirjayhtymä 1986

Rautateiden arkkitehtuuri.

Martinpaino Helsinki 1984

Valanto, Sirkka: Suomen Rautatieasemat vuosina 1857-1920.

Valtion painatuskeskus 1982