Finland comes to Queen's
RANA SIDDIQUI
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Finland displays some interesting photographs of its architectural marvels at the British Council .
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TOWERING BEAUTY An architectural example from Finland mounted at Queen's Gallery, British Council.
More often than not we blissfully forget to pay attention to relatively smaller countries, their art, culture and most importantly their architecture.
A country that completely rebuilt itself in 1917 as it declared itself independent after the revolution in Russia that year, has small traces and strong memoirs in the form of its mediaeval stone churches, most of which were built between 1400 and 1500, Parliament building, and some newer modern constructions done roughly after Helsinki was declared the capital of Finland in 1812.
All this is now thrown open to the public in India. At the Queen's Gallery, British Council, the architecture of the country with 5.2 million population - as big as the State of Maharashtra - is reflected in some 25 photographs titled "Architecture of Finland".
The display of these pictures which forms a part of EU Cultural Weeks and concludes this Friday travels to Kathmandu soon, is divided into three categories; "Early 20th Century photographs that have influences of Europe, Finland's most important architect Alvar Aalto's creations of functionalism, and the modern architecture," explains Anna-Kaisa Heikkinen, the Second Secretary, Embassy of Finland. So there are pictures of structures as old as 1777 and as new as 1995.
Tell tale images
There are interesting tales attached to almost all the pictures here. Take for instance, two pictures taken by Ilpo Okkonen of the Tampere Cathedral church built between 1902 and 1907, the architecture of whichby Lars Sonck is considered the most controversial as it has a snake image in the ceiling.
"And snake is a symbol of sin in Christianity. The balcony painting shows skeletons watering the flowers, people coming out of their graves and instead of a usual picture of the Christ nailed and wearing a crown of thorns, he shows small, naked children carrying big green plants and sporting thorny crown on their heads. It only symbolises, I believe, that life is also about evil," opines Anna-Kaisa. And then there are several photographs (by Simo Rista) of Alvar Aalto's creations; from Paimio Sanatorium at Paimo built between 1929 and 1933 which is considered Aalto's most important work of "early functionalism", his key work the Villa Mairea at Noormarkku built between 1937 and 1939, University of Jyvaskyla and so on.
And there are newer buildings as Rovaniemi Airport built in 1992 by Mikko Heikkinen and Markku Komone and a residential building in Helsinki (1995) both pictures are taken by Jussi Tiainen.
A little study of the photographs also projects that earlier constructions were little about colours and more about the interplay of light, shade and space. And modern architecture has liberal doses of colours in them.
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