WORDS AND DEEDS: NATIONAL STYLE VERSUS MODERNITY IN FINNISH ARCHITECTURE, 1890-1916: THE WRITINGS OF VILHO PENTTILÄ AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS Volume 1 Charlotte Ashby A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2007 Full metadata for this item is available in Research@StAndrews:FullText at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/318 This item is protected by original copyright This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence WORDS AND DEEDS: NATIONAL STYLE VERSUS MODERNITY IN FINNISH ARCHITECTURE 1890-1916: THE WRITINGS AND WORK OF VILHO PENTTILÄ AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS VOLUME 1 CHARLOTTE ASHBY Submitted in application of the degree of Ph.D in the University of St Andrews, 4th September 2006. ABSTRACT This thesis examines the question of the extent to which the concept of a National Style dominated architectural production in Finland between 1890 and 1916. The thesis maintains that National Style ideas should be understood as one of a number of impulses emerging in Finnish architecture in the 1890s. This point is explored through analysis of the writings of the architect, journalist and Finnish nationalist Vilho Penttilä. His writings reveal that alongside the National Style he was also concerned with the general question of architectural reform in Finland. This thinking included new ideas on the role that materials, construction and new technology should play in shaping architectural design. Alongside this ran interest in the development of a new language of architectural ornament capable of expressing the character of the building and the society who used it. International architecture was frequently referred to as a model in relation to the National Style and architectural reform in general. Comparison is made to other writings within the Finnish architectural press. The thesis is tested through the examination of a case study: the buildings of Penttilä for the National Joint-Stock Bank [KOP] and the architecture of financial buildings in general, with further comparison made, where relevant, to the broader architectural field. This allows for the comparison of the work of a large number of architects and prestigious projects throughout the country. The study reveals that, just as was indicated through the analysis of architectural journalism, National Style ideas were explored alongside other concerns related to architectural reform. National Style features began to disappear in the mid-1900s, subsumed within the drive to find new architectural forms to reflect the modern age and Finland’s hopes for the future. This was found to be the case even in relation to Penttilä’s work for KOP, where both the architect and the institution were committed to the Finnish nationalist movement. CONTENTS Acknowledgements i 1.i INTRODUCTION 1 Terminology 12 1.ii HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: The Development of Finnish Nationhood and Nationalism 16 Ethno-linguistic Nationalism – Fennomania 17 Svecomania 19 Russian Nationalism and Russification 20 2.i NATIONAL STYLE: THE VERNACULAR MODEL: Penttilä’s Writings for Suomen Teollisuuslehti and the 26 Development of National Style Thinking in Finland. The Vernacular Paradigm and the National Style in Finland 42 Karelianism 56 2.ii THE CREATION OF NATIONAL STYLE FORMS: A Finnish Style 62 The Paris Pavilion 70 2.iii URBAN ARCHITECTURE: PROGRESS AND REFORM: A New Style for a Modern Age 85 Noble Building Materials, Structural Clarity and a New Style of 91 Ornament 3.i BANKING ARCHITECTURE IN FINLAND: The Head Offices and Penttilä’s work for KOP 117 Ludwig Bohnstedt, Bank of Finland, 1878-1883 118 Onni Tarjanne, Kansallis-Osakepankki, 1889-1892 126 Gustaf Nyström, Suomen Yhdyspankki, 1896-1898 131 Waldemar Aspelin, Pohjoismaiden Osakepankki, 1898-1900 137 Penttilä as a Bank Architect 141 Vilho Penttilä, Oulu KOP, 1898-1900 144 Vilho Penttilä, Viipuri KOP, 1900-1901 154 Vilho Penttilä, Kuopio KOP, 1903-1904 166 3.ii THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRANCH BUILDING: THE CASE 170 OF TAMPERE Gustaf Nyström, Tampere SYP, 1901 172 Birger Federley, Tampere POP, 1901-1902 179 Gesellius-Lindgren-Saarinen, Tampere Savings Bank, 1900-1903 183 Birger Federley, Tampere Joint-Stock Bank, 1904-1905 187 Vilho Penttilä, Tampere KOP, 1905-1907 192 Interior Design: A Comparison of Tampere KOP with the Private 195 Bank and the Helsinki POP 4.i THE NEW DIRECTION: Evolution within the Finnish New Style 206 Suomen Teollisuuslehti and the New Direction 211 Lars Sonck, Mortgage Association Building, 1907-1908 222 4.ii VILHO PENTTILÄ AND THE NEW DIRECTION: THE LATER 229 KOP BUILDINGS The Kotka KOP, 1908-1910 229 The Iisalmi KOP, 1910-1912 234 The Lahti KOP, 1911-1913 238 The Development of the Branch Bank Model 246 The Turku KOP, 1912-1914 251 The Hämeenlinna and Jyväskylä KOP buildings, 1913-1916 259 4.iii NEW STYLE CLASSICISM IN HELSINKI IN THE 1910s Change and Continuity 270 Tarjanne and Lindgren’s Suomi Building, 1909-1911 271 5. CONCLUSION 285 BIBLIOGRAPHY 291 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly I would like to thank my supervisor Jeremy Howard for seeing me through the last five years, his constant enthusiasm for my research, and particularly for his help during the writing up. I also received support from a number of Finnish academics, in particular my supervisor in Finland, Annika Weanerberg, from the University of Jyväskylä; Riitta Nikula at the University of Helsinki and Eija Rauske at the Museum of Finnish Architecture. I also benefited from the opportunity to discuss my work with Pekka Korvenmaa at the Helsinki School of Design and Tiina Merisalo at the Helsinki Museum. During the course of my research I have received assistance in numerous institutions and I would particularly like to thank Erkki Vanhakoski, Timo Tuomi and other members of staff at the Museum of Finnish Architecture, also Jorma Pennanen at the Bank of Finland and Esko Vuorisjärvi, Tuula Salo and Arja-Anneli Eerola at Nordea Bank. I also benefited from the assistance of archivists from across Finland, who responded to all my enquiries, helped me find the material I needed and showed interest in my research. I would like to thank, Lotta Mattila at the Turku Regional Museum; Ulla Nieminen, Hämeenlinna City Museum; Pasi Kovalainen, Pohjois-Pohjanmaa Museum; Pirjo Jantunen, Kuopio City Museum; Riitta Hänninen, Lahti City Museum; Outi Penninkangas, Vapriikki Museum Centre; Tiina Leinonen, Kymenlaakson Regional Museum; Ritva Saarinen, Jyväskylä, Museum of Centre Finland; Tuomas Kunttu, Kouvola Library; Raija Hänninen, Sysmä Savings Bank; Anu Haapala, Virolahti Museum; Pertti Launonen, Iisalmi Building Control department, as well as staff at the National Archives in Helsinki and Mikkeli and at the National Board of Antiquities. I would also like to thank staff at the City Archives in Oulu, Tampere, Kotka, Iisalmi, Lahti, Turku, Hämeenlinna, Jyväskylä and Tornio. My research would not have been possible without the financial support I received from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I also received support for my research trips across Finland from the Centre for International Mobility, Helsinki; The Carnegie Institute; The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain; The Confederation of Scandinavian Societies of Great Britain and Ireland and the Tessa Trethowan Memorial Fund at the University of St Andrews. Finally, I would like to thank my parents Leena and Julian Ashby for their emotional and financial support and my mum’s help with translation; Lalla and Justus Raatikainen for making me so welcome in their home; Elli, Jaakko, Esko, Kaisa and Minna Helkavaara for encouraging me with my Finnish; my friends in Helsinki and London, for encouraging me generally; Tash Banks, Peter Clasby, Leslie Harris and my mum for their work proof reading and finally my partner, Alex Szyjanowicz, who now knows more about Finnish architecture than he ever wanted to and who has supported me all the way. 1 1.i INTRODUCTION “We are no longer Swedes. We do not wish to be Russians. So we must be Finns.”1 This famous quote by the Finnish nationalist philosopher Adolf Ivar Arwidsson in the 1820s illustrates one of the core challenges facing those who strove to formulate and promote Finnish national identity in the nineteenth century. A backwoods province of the Swedish crown since the fourteenth century, ceded to Russia in 1809, Finland had little in the way of heroes or illustrious history to draw upon in the creation of national pride and identity.2 Arwidsson’s quote reveals that is was easier to define Finland in terms of what she was not, rather than what she was. And yet, Awidsson’s vison, ‘we must be Finns’, was realised and an independent Finnish state came into existence for the first time in 1917. Much of the labour of developing Finnish national consciousness was played out in the cultural sphere. Writers, artists, architects and composers made vital contributions, making tangible the ephemeral reality of being Finnish. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, scholarly examination of the nation’s cultural history and appreciation for Finnish creative ingenuity has formed an important part of developing national consciousness in Finland.3 Following the trauma of the First and Second World Wars the role of the arts and design in re-enforcing a shared sense of national identity and pride remained important. The cultural flowering that accompanied rising national consciousness in the 1890s and 1900s became regarded as a golden age and the work of Akseli Gallen-Kalela, Jean Sebelius, Eino Leino and others became understood 1 Adolf Ivar Arwidsson (1791-1858) was a politician, journalist, author, poet and historian and part of the circle of Romantic-minded, Finnish nationalists based in Turku (Åbo in Swedish) in the early nineteenth century. 2 This absence of a glorious historic past is one of the reasons for the great significance the Kalevala legends, collected and composed in 1830, in the project of nation building in Finland.