|242| Planning Patriotic Landscapes in :

The Statues of Presidents of and the New Public Role of the Monuments

Kolbe, Laura (, Finland)[email protected] Professor Laura Kolbe, from the Department of History of the University of Helsinki, acts as the Academic Chair Holder. The Chair Holder provides scientific guidance, takes part in the project with her own research, and acts as the administrative responsible of the project. Kolbe, the project’s Director, is Professor of the European History at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Helsinki. She has been actively researching several aspects of the interrelations between historical memory and urban environment. In a recent monograph, Helsinki 1918: Pääkaupunki ja sota (& S. Nyström, 2008), Kolbe has applied the lieux de mémoire approach to Finnish historical and European urban memory. Her research has also focused on the comparative study of the development of capital cities as expressions of national politics in Europe, the post-war urban history of Helsinki metropolitan area, municipal policies, the politics of city building process, architecture and planning. She is a council member and previous president (2007-2010) of the International Planning History Society (IPHS) and founder and president (2002-2006) of the Finnish Urban Research Society (1999).

TEMA 5

Resumo The aim of the presentation is to analyse a unique combination of monumental national art and city planning in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. During the period 1958-2000 eight (8) presidential monuments were planned in the capital city’s central urban landscape, close to the national Parliament building (1933). These monuments were (and still are) in the service of national unity. They embodied the quest for a new, more political role for public art in its urban context in a country that became independent in 1917, as a result of Russian revolution and preserved this position during the Second World War, as the only country at war with the .

The monuments, usually stared as private enterprises, were experienced during the planning process as joint projects of national significance. Competition and planning usually created violent public debate. The location of the statues was decided by the city of Helsinki, thus shaping special challenges for the urban municipal planning. The political message was created during the process and culminated in the inaugural ceremony. All sources will be analyzed.

1. During years 1958-1960 the first presidents (1919-1939: Ståhlberg, Svinhufvud, Kallio) were commemorated by planning their statues close to the Parliament building. Traditional solutions were used; the formal, classical and iconographic simplicity was in service of national stability. Classical heroism in the statues created simple codes and narrow emotional register, main task being – as the Cold War was reaching its peak – to underline the national independence in the aftermath of the war. A special case was the planning of the monument dedicated to Marshall Mannerheim, the commander-in-chief of the army during years 19139- 1945 and late war-time . A special location was planned for the monument at the urban”cross-roads” of Mannerheim’s life - a wide ceremonial space and opening was planned round the statue.

2. The fifth monument, dedicated to President Paasikivi, the leading post-war president was inaugurated in 1980, on the opposite side of the same street where the Monument of Mannerheim had been planned. The competition in 1970 showed new disagreements about the role of public art - classical style was considered to be old fashioned. Art of public space had a new message: this time a “monument for life work” was planned in a more informal setting, by using the language of modernism. The combination created new codes of information and national narration. It Paasikivi’s monument informality is present with many shared values, allowing many interpretation. The statue has informal setting, based on the presence at a street level.

3. A State committee was established in 1992 to create a planning program for the last presidential monuments in urban landscape. Competitions were arranged, followed again by heated discussions. Nationalist and militarist memory elements were strong when planning the abstract monument of war time president Risto Ryti and Kekkonen was commemorated with a monument based on informalism, striving for harmony between art, collective memoires and nature.