Monday, August 07, 2006

Monday Memory, a Trip Tale: July 21 Hvitträsk

I'll cheat a little here, because this memory is only about 2 weeks old. Our last full day in Finland (having returned the day before from Russia), we drove west out of Helsinki, past Espoo and visited Hvitträsk, the Finnish home of the Saarinens, architects who emigrated to the United States in the 1920s. It was the working space, and now a museum, of three young architects 100 years ago, Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950), Herman Gesellius (1874-1916), and Armos Lindgren (1874-1929). Gesellius died young and Lindgren returned to Helsinki after a few years, so the Saarinens lived there with their children. Eliel Saarinen was designer of the Finnish National Museum in Helsinki (1902-1911) and the Railway Stations of Helsinki (1904-1919), from which we travelled to Russia, and Vyborg (1904-1913) where we stopped to have our passports checked.

The style of the complex is called National-Romantic, but to my eye it appears very similar to the early arts and crafts movement which influenced Frank Lloyd Wright and many others in the arts like the Roycrofters (Elbert Hubbard), which we visited on our trip to East Aurora, NY two years ago.

The main building of Hvitträsk is now a museum and includes furniture designed by the elder Saarinen and fabrics by his wife. His son, Eero (1910-1961) also became a famous architect. Both father and son are represented in Columbus, IN which we were visiting the following Friday. One of the restored houses in the complex contained a nice restaurant where we enjoyed a nice brunch/buffet for 12 euros on a glassed in patio. It was a wonderful place to visit, especially for the three architects--reduced ticket price for them, but Riitta and I thought it was terrific too.





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When I get back from Michigan, I'll link to commenters. 1. Reverberate58 2. Mrs. Lifecruiser 3. Melli 4. Friday's Child

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, how I love to share other's trips by their photos! It's the second best travelling.

Looks absolutely fantastic. I love the romantic touch they have.

(I cheated too this week :-)

Melli said...

Wow! Sounds like you guys really had a fantastic vacation! The pictures are neat! I love that fireplace in the top one. And the cute little surgical slippers in the bottom one!!! LOL! That is such a great idea! I've never seen it used in the states -- but maybe I just haven't been to the right places.

FRIDAY'S CHILD said...

Nice fireplace on photo #1. You seemed to have great time. I don't think it's cheating. 2 weeks ago are still memories.
My Monday Memories is up too.