When approaching from the Centre of Helsinki, one enters Vuosaari at Vartiokylänlahti Bay. Vuotie Street and the underground railway which runs on the ground in this part of the city together cut a nearly hundred-metre-wide canyon in the landscape. This traffic environment forms the main entrance to the most strongly expanding district of Helsinki, and some day it may also be the route to the nation’s new great harbour.
The infrastructure of the area, streets, bridges and railways, had already been planned and were under construction. But even the best city plans and bridge designs cannot necessarily create a whole that would have a nature of its own. The entry road plan was to show what was still to be done and - within the framework of already agreed plans how to give the Gateway to Vuosaari a personal look.
The vastness of the area and the massiveness of its structures (rock cuttings, concrete bridges, high-rise blocks) require a corresponding scale of plan rather than small-scale enlivening or decoration. This environment is usually experienced in a few minutes from a car speeding by at 60 to 80 kilometres an hour, or from the underground.
Fifty years ago Helsinki was saved by the bonfires of Vuosaari. The enemy bombers mistook the location of the city and dropped their load in the backwoods of Vuosaari. As a tribute to the event there will be 238 torchlights on both sides of Vuotie Street. The light columns of the motor street -- between which the actual street light fixtures will hang on cables - will be made of perforated steel plate. At the foot of these columns there will also be light fixtures which together with the perforated steel surfaces create a moiré phenomenon: to the car passing by the artificial light seems to blaze like a real fire. In the daytime, the rows of columns and the cable roof between them create a connected whole, a “tunnel” through which the landscape is filtered.
Rhythm is imparted to the steady journey by the “world’s greatest” sundial by Lauri Anttila. At four different points the mirror reflects the sun on the glass plate set up on the opposite side of the road. Each plate in turn indicates the time of noon for the longitudes of Moscow, St. Petersburg (the “actual” time which we use), Berlin, and Greenwich. The centre of this installation can be found in the turning space of Rastilantie Street: the well of Erastothenes to which the description of the sundial is attached.


Photo: Jussi Tiainen

Unlike from the car, from the underground one can only see to one side. On the part of the railway that runs above ground, rhythm is given to the scenery by stations. After the open seaview of Vartiokylänlahti Bay, the train will rush from Rastila into a gully lined with rock cuttings or a green wall of spruce hedge, and drive there for two or three minutes before arriving at the terminal station of Vuosaari.