‘A magnate and three young architects’
HELSINKI 1897
On Saturday, 30 October 1897, a celebration took place in the up-and-coming district of Katajanokka (“Juniper Point”) in Helsinki. The occasion was a so-called taklagsöl (or taklagsfest), the Swedish name for celebrating when the last layer of tiles is completed on a new building. The workers still had the winter and spring to finish the interiors, fittings and final finishes by the planned unveiling on June 1 the following year. But the building work at Satamakatu 7 was now complete.
According to tradition, it was the landlord’s responsibility to provide a party for all involved in putting up his (or her) new building as thanks for the hard work. Failure to do so meant being outed by workers as a cheap and miserly employer.
There was no risk that Julius Tallberg would come across as a spendthrift man – celebration or no celebration. He was a merchant and entrepreneur of high reputation and standing. As well as extreme wealth, Tallberg enjoyed the status of being one of the leading industrialists in the land. He was an entrepreneur with irons in every fire of commerce. He dealt in everything from commercial goods to dynamite. As the builders celebrated, Julius was already thinking about the new electric tram-way that he was planning to announce in the new year. He was also awaiting approval of his next architectural venture: a grand commercial palace in the heart of the business district.
But tonight’s festivities were to celebrate that the crown had just been put atop his latest commission: a luxurious four-storey building that boasted one apartment per floor. Each comprised eight rooms, a hall, kitchen, bathroom, utility rooms, etc. The water-closets (WCs) even featured the latest in plumbing technology.
Julius Tallberg’s father died when Julius was 13. The resulting financial difficulties meant he had been forced to quit school and start working. He got his first job at an ironmonger’s, where he showed great promise. By age 20 he had progressed to settling accounts for the shop owner and was studying on the side. He gained a bookkeeper’s degree and in 1878 moved from Turku to Helsinki and became a bookkeeper at the renowned Stockmann trading firm.
The young Tallberg came late to work one summer morning after taking an early swim. He was dismissed and forced to look for work elsewhere. He turned to friends in the building industry and secured finance for his own venture. In March 1880, he had his own building-materials business – as he turned 23 – selling nails at the market square. Seven years later, he bought out his business associates and his company expanded rapidly, as he went wholesale and diversified into concrete prefabrication, wallpaper manufacture and a brickworks. By 1888 he was on the committee of Helsinki’s planning authority. At age 30, Julius Tallberg was an influential person in Helsinki and a leading industrial figure in Finland.
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The year 1880 marked the beginning of La Belle époque. It was a time of great energy, creation and industrious excitement across much of Europe. Helsinki was booming, the building industry was booming and the economy was booming. Helsinki already had five hotels and plenty of restaurants and cafés. There were 200 factories in the city and almost a tenth of the population worked in them. The city’s population grew from 32,000 in 1870 to 43,000 by 1880.
The 1880s would see a new generation of young “home-grown” architects. They were the first to graduate from professional courses at the Helsinki Polytechnic Institute – reformed and formalised in 1879. Finnish architects previously had to complete their studies in Sweden or Germany. Now they studied at home.
Russia (this included Finland), too, was seeing its commercial activities booming, thanks to a large domestic market and trade with European neighbours. For Finland, a period of unprecedented economic growth began in 1885. These were good economic times across Europe, and this also meant there was more money available to fund the arts. It was in this wave of prosperity that magnate Julius Tallberg had built his fortune.
The leading Finnish architects of the 1880s were Carl Theodor Höijer and Gustaf Nyström. Nyström was known for a style that combined Neo-Renaissance idiom with modern structural methods. Although cast-iron structures were becoming more common, there was no change in the outward styling of Finnish buildings. The dominant style throughout Finland in the 1880s and early 1890s remained Classical, Neo-Classical and Neo-Renaissance styles. However, signs of modernisation would slowly creep in.
In 1889 – when Julius was 32 – Finnish design, arts and crafts appeared at the Paris World Fair. This was the first time that Finland had ever stepped out on the international stage on its own by taking a pavilion at such an event. It was still, of course, a province of Russia. That same year, a young Finnish artist called Akseli Gallen-Kallela returned from Paris to spend the summer with a friend researching “Finnishness” in Finland’s rural regions. He was one of the first to successfully combine the Finnish patriotic mood with the newly emerging international arts movement that was appearing around Europe.
By 1890, there were now 27 buildings of five storeys in Helsinki and one reaching six storeys. For young architects, this was a new era. The 1890s mark the beginning of “Finland’s Golden Age”, when many turned to art as a broad medium to express nationalistic sentiment. Romanticism and interest in Finland’s past reached a climax during this final decade of the 1800s. Akseli Gallen-Kallela would become the central figure of the golden fin de siècleperiod in Finland. He has been described as “a portrayer of the Finnish soul”.
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The Industrial Revolution came to Finland in the 1860s and 1870s, mostly in paper and timber, which were in great demand across Europe. Until now, some 90% of Finns lived an agricultural existence. But now Finland experienced significant economic and technological progress. There was a growing interest in Finnish national sentiment at this time. Along with this came the emergence of formalised revivals in traditional handicrafts, arts and crafts and decorations. Similar revivalist movements were also flourishing across parts of Europe. The mood was ripe – as a new century loomed – for a radical change in artistic direction.
Katajanokka would become the first modern district in Helsinki. Although only a stone’s throw from Uspenski Cathedral, the peninsula had until recently been shacks and slums. But the growing city desperately needed modern port and customs facilities, so authorities had now earmarked the island for rapid development. Two decades earlier, it had been a barren slum. A new town plan was published in 1895, and the development boom began. Planning rules stated that buildings were to be made from stone and brick, and construction needed to be completed within five years of the land purchase. This ensured rapid development, which is what public authorities wanted.
The upper-middle classes were making money in construction, industrialisation, trade and banking. Katajanokka would quickly become the destination for the newly minted upper-middle classes – setting themselves apart from the city’s “old money” establishment. A new generation of moneyed people set out to be apart from the established orders. What better place to make their own mark than on an island connected by a bridge?
News of the planned works for a new building had appeared in the newspapers in January 1895. The location was plot number 7 – a triangular plot on the corner of West Satamakatu and Luotsikatu. The value of the land was 14,500 Finnish marks. Julius Tallberg then announced the commission for a new building on his plot. This was good news for three young men at the start of their careers.
The recently graduated architect students Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren and Eliel Saarinen ventured out into the world and had just opened the doors to their new joint-practice – Architect-Bureau Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen – on the busy thoroughfare of West Henrikinkatu (today, Mannerheimintie) in Helsinki. Although recent graduates from Helsinki’s four-year Polytechnic degree after passing their exams, they were not unproven. Herman Gesellius had, while still a student, won a commission for a villa for wealthy merchants. Planning authorities approved the plans in 1895 and that summer the student Herman Gesellius gained valuable experience working at the office of Gustaf Nyström. He continued working with Nyström until he graduated in 1897. Lindgren and Saarinen also worked there as draughtsmen. In this context, the young trio then submitted two plans to Tallberg’s commission with a daring building in “the new style” that was emerging in central Europe. The young firm of Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen won the competition. There were 17 submissions, and both first and second prize had gone to an unknown trio of young architects.
It was now four years since Victor Horta unveiled the famous Hotel Tassel (1893) in Brussels and almost two years since Siegfried Bing had opened his now already famous gallery of modern art in Paris, ‘L’Art Nouveau’ (1895). Helsinki might have been on the periphery of Europe – a region of the Russian Empire, a Grand Duchy no less – but a new generation of artists and architects had noted a new movement quietly sweeping Europe. In Finland, this coincided with an atmosphere of growing Finnish nationalism and talk of independence.
This contract had been a lucky break for the trio, who were now aged 23 and 24. The portly Julius Tallberg, age 40, understood the importance of this first break for the young men. He had been there himself. He, too, had once gotten a first break. This new construction was a radical departure from traditional architectural styles. Julius Tallberg was drawn to the novelty of building it in this thriving new commercial district. He snapped up the bold new plans and awarded the contract for his building on plot number 7 to the young men.
The final plans were agreed and signed off in July (and announced in the newspapers) 1897 and work had got underway immediately. This was a watershed moment in the direction of architecture. Without knowing the future to come, this marked the first Art Nouveau Jugendstil building in Finland – even if then that description was not being used.
To date, there had so far been only a few hints of this new “modern” style appearing in a handful of buildings in Helsinki. The building that appeared at Satamakatu 7 was different. It was truly magnificent. And it was following a new European trend, but with echoes of Finland’s past.
The quirky building’s two façades were of a revivalist medieval style not seen before. This showcase home at West Satamakatu 7 had a steep, narrow roof that culminated in a corner tower with wrought-iron gating and a pointed spire. It featured prominent projections, marble from Norway, angular lead-light mosaic windows from England and neat little towers with slate tiles imported from Sweden. The wallpaper was already ordered from England, home of William Morris’s decorative print designs.
But luxuries were not what made the new building remarkable. It looked more like a castle than anything that had been built in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland in more than a century. National Romanticism was the early expression of nationalism and, in Finland, it took its lead from Karelianism. It is the National Romantic influence that gave Helsinki its turrets, spires, projections and heavy-set doorways. Unique to Finland is the added influence of the national epic, the Kalevala.
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Tonight, for several reasons, many were celebrating. Here was a leading figure unknowingly passing the baton to the next generation. For the young trio of architects, this was the start of their careers. On this night, none of them had any idea how bright their stars would be. The wealthy magnate Julius Tallberg would watch Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen become international superstars over the next three years and create some of Finland’s most famous buildings. Over the next 25 years, the trio would lead Finland into the age of modernity.
