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Cycles of Change
The new generation is having to find their professional path in a time that is characterized by both a deepening climate crisis and increasing economic, political and social uncertainty, writes Kristo Vesikansa in the New Vision issue editorial.
Architectural trends typically shift in cycles of roughly ten years. If you look back on the history of Finnish architecture ten years at a time, you can pinpoint surprisingly many stylistic culminations – for example, the crests of the minimalist (1995), postmodernist (1985), brutalist (1965), functionalist (1935), Nordic classicist (1925) and national romantic (1905) waves. Each trend has brought a group of new designers into the architectural field, who have then been featured in the thematic issues of this journal.
The last such issue came out exactly ten years ago, with the theme of “Young Ideas”. The then editor-in-chief Jorma Mukala saw an ideological shift that had taken place over the previous few years, which was evident in the ways in which young architects were “increasingly advocating the significance of the everyday urban environment and active engagement, cooperation with users, the promotion of equality on a global scale and, of course, mitigation of climate change”. The new ideals and practices were particularly well captured by the Uusi Kaupunki collective, which also introduced Finland to a more relaxed and dialogic way of working as an architect in the public eye.
In ten years, the young prospects have grown into successful designers and teachers, and an entire generation of younger architects have launched their careers. So, it is high time for a new survey of today’s emerging practices. We asked eight architects, design teams or architecture firms to choose one project that best describes their approach to the work. These include completed new construction and renovation projects, competition entries as well as temporary installations and participatory urban design projects. Together, they form a mosaic that can be viewed as a snapshot of the current aspirations of young architects.
The new generation is having to find their professional path in a time that is characterized by both a deepening climate crisis and increasing economic, political and social uncertainty. In the opening article, Aleksi Lohtaja and Liisa Ryynänen dive into the ways in which the collapsing faith in the future that is caused by these disruptions has been examined in contemporary architecture from the point of view of limited resources, imperfection and incompleteness.
If you look back on the history of Finnish architecture ten years at a time, you can pinpoint surprisingly many stylistic culminations.
Many young – and also older – architects these days look up to their French colleague Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, who shot to architectural fame four years ago with her call for a moratorium on new construction. Matti Jänkälä discusses the yield of Malterre-Barthes’ new book on the same topic with Professor of Real Estate Economics Seppo Junnila. Tuomas Siitonen, then, reflects in his article on how architectural education should be reformed to equip our profession to fully engage in designing a sustainable future.
In addition to attitudes and economical and cultural context, architectural gestures and expressions have also changed in the last ten years: the blobby volumes enabled by the development of digital design tools and the pixelated compositions have been replaced by a type of regularity that draws from the classical tradition and more or less direct historical references. Henrik Ilvesmäki delves into the international background and arrival in Finland of a phenomenon which he refers to as New Historicism, in addition to studying the friction between Central-European ideas and our local design practices.
As noted by Kirmo Mikkola as early as in 1969, the defining characteristic of Finnish architecture has always been the speed and totality of adopting foreign influences; in such a small country, there has often been room for only one stylistic trend at a time. This seems to apply to the present state of affairs as well: aesthetics that were initially only seen in student projects and competition entries by young architects have matured into the mainstream style of the 2020s, which the large established firms are now also casually applying in their designs. It is not particularly far-fetched to predict, then, that we are in for another stylistic shift within the next few years. Some clues as to what is to come can be gleaned from the design competition for the New Museum of Architecture and Design, the results of which will be presented in the Architectural Competitions in Finland supplement attached to this issue. The winning entry was submitted by JKMM Architects, the most successful Finnish firm at the moment, but young Finnish architects also had the chance to shine in the international race.
The projects featured in this issue also come from the younger generation of architects. Sammontalo in Lappeenranta and the Kottby Comprehensive School in Helsinki are prime examples of a skilful application of contemporary style ideals with their symmetric facades, evenly spaced windows and pitched roofs. The renovation and expansion of the medieval church in Lieto, on the other hand, stands as a reminder of the longer time perspectives in construction – the thorough renovation was carried out to serve the current needs of the congregation, but it, too, will inevitably remain as just one of many phases in the building’s more than five-hundred-year history. ↙
