Illustration Antti Uotila.

The motto for Helsinki’s World Design Capital 2012 bid was “The people make the city”. Moreover, “we need the world and that is why we ourselves must be useful citizens of the world”. We should spend more time exploring other cultures and invite the world to our place too. Interested in the current and future state of the city’s internationalization, I went through some statistics and talked with citizens of the world who have moved to Helsinki from abroad or who feel like moving out. Where do people come from and where should they go?

Finland’s internationalization has accelerated since receiving EU membership in 1995, making Helsinki one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in Europe with a migration rate of 550 people every month. Having said that, statistically the biggest leap in migration took place in the nineties, when Ingrians returned to Finland in their thousands after being granted a right of return from the former Soviet Union. At that time, many refugees also arrived from Somalia and the former Yugoslavia.

By the end of last year, there were nearly 40,000 foreigners from 160 different nationalities residing in Helsinki, making up a little less than ten percent of the city’s population. On a global scale, the number is small, but it is rapidly growing.

The reasons for moving here are increasingly not only driven by necessity. For example, artists NURRI KIM from Korea and SASHA HUBER from Switzerland have come to Helsinki for love and to work with creative independence. This kind of more spontaneous migration to Finland must have something to do with the fact that Finnish people go and stay abroad more, meeting people from different corners of the world.

“In Finland I learned to live more reduced and perhaps more simple – with less ‘stuff’ compared to Switzerland,” says Sasha Huber. “This feels good. I think people are less materialistic but definitely appreciate good quality, beautiful, functional and ethically made products.”

New areas and perspectives

The Helsinki region which has a population of 1.3 million people lies on the shore of the Baltic Sea. It is known for its good standard of living and high level of education. However, the publics’ well-being and prosperity are counterbalanced by a high cost of living. In city comparisons, Helsinki ranks sixth highest on the list of housing prices in Europe with an average cost of 2,580 euros per square meter.

As a city, Helsinki is also expanding rapidly. Complete new areas are under construction; Kalasatama and Jätkäsaari will become completely new districts, while Keski-Pasila will become the second centre for the city. Alppikylä, Ormuspelto and Östersundom will become areas of new town houses that are yet to be in Helsinki. All in all, more than 5,000 new apartments will be built in Helsinki every year.

In addition to people moving to Helsinki, Helsinkians are moving abroad. In 2009, about 3,100 people from Helsinki alone relocated to outside the country, with the most popular destinations being Sweden, the USA as well as South-Eastern and Eastern Asia.

MARTTI KALLIALA, an architect and musician, is planning to join the club this autumn. Meanwhile, he is touring the world with his electronic music project, Renaissance Man, and editing a book on pragmatic utopias for Finland. The book suggests a compulsory year out for all Finnish people.

He presents a polemic idea about replacing Finnish national service with a compulsory year out which would provide people with first-hand experiences of different cultures.

“We need an international criterion and standards for doing things instead of operating only within our own small circle,” Kalliala says. “And people should encounter Finns outside Finland, too.”

“The cultural enemy of Finland is the poisonous combination of weak national self-esteem veiled in over-emphasized complacency,” he continues. “It’s easy to settle for things here, people don’t protest against bad service, substandard food or inefficient health care practices.”

According to the general consensus, maintaining the status quo is OK. The reasons for this are the country’s distant geographical location, late internationalization as well as young city culture, which add up to a lack of international references.

“Our perspective is very different from that of a Central European who is physically surrounded by other distinctive cultures and everyday practices,” adds Kalliala.

Piece of ragged city culture

“Helsinki is a city where everything that’s great doesn’t exist yet,” says artist Sasha Huber.

However, new influences come in with each and every immigrant. While local food doesn’t have a good reputation, at least if you ask some French and Italian politicians, Nurri Kim from Korea likes to prepare the traditional Finnish sautéed reindeer at home, in Helsinki.

Illustration Antti Uotila.

“I have developed a Korean take on the dish, adding many black peppers and herbs in the pot,” she explains. “In the same vein, I also have a Finnish friend who eats Kimchi (a Korean dish) with rye bread.”

During the dark and long winter Nurri introduced Kimjang, a Korean tradition of communal cooking between neighbors, to Helsinki. “It’s all about making Kimchi for the winter to keep you warm inside,” she says.

What makes Helsinki interesting from Martti Kalliala’s perspective is that gentrification has only just begun here. Kallio, a district on the eastern side of the Helsinki peninsula about one kilometer from the city center, makes him think of Greenwich Village in the 1950s as described by JANE JACOBS in her 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Kallio is a perfect mix of immigrants, working class, students and artists.

“Kallio combines different cultures and nationalities as well as schedules and practices,” says Kalliala with a grin. “There are a lot of original residents, and you can’t see many coffee shops in the area yet. Students and artists have been taking it over since the 1990s, the original residents are moving out because of the ascending prices of estates…” It is hard to find a part of the city theoretically as ideal as Kallio – a central spot in an industrialized country yet to have undergone the transformation from a ragged city to a trendy location”.

“This part of the city is living a fleeting moment,” as Kalliala puts it.

Helsinki outside in

While metaphorically Helsinki can be seen as an island in Western Europe, empty and far away from everything, thus intimate by nature, it is also an international traffic junction operating as a transit gateway for regular flights between America and Asia. Yearly, over five million passengers depart from and arrive at the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport on international flights. Helsinki’s development has been sparked by its close proximity to other metropolises such as St. Petersburg in the east, Tallinn in the south and Stockholm in the west.

Nevertheless, Finns spend little time outside Finland and when they do, they are usually tourists rarely exposed to first-hand experiences of foreign culture.

The map showing the genetic variation between European populations still applies – the Finnish population is isolated. “The Finnish ethos should be: if the world doesn’t come to Finland then Finland has to go to the world,” states Kalliala.

Finnish architecture and design enjoys a good reputation thanks to the post-war success stories of ALVAR AALTO and ARMI RATIA’s Marimekko. Like the story of Alvar Aalto, an international networker during his time, all the important phenomena in the history of arts and sciences are based on people and information moving around freely.

Making ourselves part of another cultural sphere would also help us to recognize our own specialties.

What is valuable about our culture and what could be better?

The writer Jenna Sutela is one of the two founders of think tank OK Do. She works in Helsinki, London, Berlin and Paris. The article is based on the City of Helsinki Urban Facts’ statistics about Foreigners in Helsinki 2009 as well as Statistical Yearbook of the City of Helsinki 2009.

Illustrations Antti Uotila

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Helsinki Design Week on 26 August–5 September 2010. See the complete schedule at www.helsinkidesignweek.com.

Janne Kyttänen.

The Finnish design company Freedom of Creation is celebrating its 10th year in business. Freedom of Creation has reinvented the 3D printing technology business, stepping away from the idea that the technology is only used to support the design stage. FOC’s final product is the valuable design models it creates.

Design is going through the same process as music, photography, printed media and books – soon everything will be digital. In the world of design, it means that there’s no point to have a bunch of items in storage waiting for the next trends when all you have to do is make a 3D file and produce an item with the right demand at the right moment. This is how JANNE KYTTÄNEN, the founder and leader of Freedom of Creation, sees it. This statement seems to have a solid base, as FOC founded in 2000, has believed in its future message since the beginning.

“I think our biggest business opportunity is that we don’t sell products at all, only 3D files,” Kyttänen says.

Palm. FOC.

FOC is a pioneer in the use of 3D printing technology in the design industry. Kyttänen and his team create computer models that can then go into production anywhere in the world. FOC’s 3D design has produced lamps, furniture, interior decoration solutions, iPhone cases and pretty much everything else we see have seen in 3D. However, Kyttänen doesn’t see himself as a product designer.

“Making products is extremely easy and I don’t see it as a challenge. I try to look at the bigger picture and create an infrastructure instead of a product. It all started during my studies, when I started to pay attention to Chinese plastic products and thought that it wasn’t working. Too much of everything is produced, forced to the markets and eventually into the seas. We wanted to create a green way of making products,” Kyttänen explains.

FOC rejects mass production that sells products to unidentified buyers, whilst hoping to come up with a good enough trick to empty the storage. FOC’s system also minimizes the logistics, investments, need for workforce and the harm to the environment.

A new industry was printed

In simple terms, a clear advantage of 3D printing technology is the ability to make a prototype at the office instead of the factory. During the past few years, the cost of 3D printers has gone down, which means they are now also available to small and middle-sized companies. The modern printers can process different materials simultaneously. The technology is typically used in the production of jewelry, footwear, architecture, as well as in the automotive, aviation, and health care industries. FOC’s foundation is solidly based on the technology, not so much on the design process.

“I have always been more interested in the broader outline of design,” Kyttänen says.

Unlike many others, FOC doesn’t use 3D computer modeling as an intermediate stage in the design and production chain, but rather it sees the model design as a valuable product. FOC produces all its products using 3D printing technology. In the first stage a CAD file is made with a 3D software such as Studio Max, Maya, Solidworks or Cinema 4D. The file is uploaded to a 3D printer and the final product is “printed” three-dimensionally, thin layer by thin layer inside the printer that resembles a box-like piece of hospital equipment. A whole range of different materials can be used for printing such as plastics, metals, rubbers and ceramic materials.

Custom-made headphones. FOC.

FOC states on its website that they believe in a future where people will have 3D printers in their homes. FOC believes ordinary citizens will have the ability to just download files for products they want from the Internet and produce them by themselves.

“I have been doing 3D design since I was 15 and I have considered how it could create a whole new industry,” Kyttänen says.

Printing your own coffee table three-dimensionally from your own living room printer could be as easy as that. Although his own ideas are elsewhere, Kyttänen says that he greatly respects the old days of Finnish design, when the industry was quite different.

”I think highly of EERO AARNIO and his entire generation. It was a whole different world in the 60’s. Shit, if I was in their shoes! Back then you just packed your family, products and a tent in your car and went on a sales trip…there were no fax machines and people didn’t know foreign languages, it took quite an attitude to do that,” Kyttänen says.

“I just sit my butt on the couch and send 3D models all over the world, the next day I get the stuff through DHL,” Kyttänen says as he continues our conversation using Skype from his couch in Amsterdam.

Copying accusations belong in the past

Freedom of Creation emphasizes that it is both a design and a research unit. FOC make file concepts for both their own products as well as for various customers undertaking research and development projects. FOC’s reference list is extensive, including the likes of LVMH, Nokia and Heineken. All of them have ordered a unique, brand specific concept. Uniqueness is still a strange concept to Kyttänen.

FOC.

“If design becomes more democratic, then what’s the point in copying anything? If a unique design can be copied in China the next day, then was it really unique? Accusations of copying are an issue from the 60’s,” he says.

In his opinion, cheaply produced design copies shouldn’t be a real threat to anyone. The sound and picture industries have looked for new ways to keep their products unique. *Let others copy. If you don’t have new ideas you shouldn’t play the game. I have a lot of ideas, but I’m sure I’m not the only one. There are ideas in the air, some people do something with them and some don’t,” Kyttänen says.

Only the latest matters

Kyttänen learned an important lesson when he was a young athlete – only the latest result matters. As a professional squash player he learned to be self-disciplined and independent. It was sports that lead him to Amsterdam in the first place. Kyttänen’s studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy didn’t come until later. In the end the country didn’t matter, it just happened to be Holland.

Kyttänen’s team of ten people slowly developed around him and now after just 10 years, Freedom of Creation that began during his studies has expanded to become the leader of a new industry. FOC’s exhibition at the Cable Factory will not only be a 10-year retrospective of the company, but also a look back at the entire 3D technology through the years.

So, what will the exhibition show? Apparently, the making of the exhibition has followed the same trend as all their other work – models don’t have to be ready until just before the final printing. How the exhibition will be presented was still a big mystery to Kyttänen when I spoke to him earlier in the summer.

“We want to show the complexities of our designs and putting an exhibition together. We want to show the audience that things take time even if it looks easy.”

At least Kyttänen promises to have actual prototypes and the latest products on show – not just files.

Freedom of Creation’s 10-year anniversary exhibition at the Cable Factory, Helsinki, 1-4 September 2010. www.freedomofcreation.com

Text Simo Vassinen Photos FOC

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Helsinki Design Week on 26 August–5 September 2010. See the complete schedule at www.helsinkidesignweek.com.

Kari Korkman. Photo Chris Vidal.

Expectations are high as Helsinki and its neighboring cities are preparing for World Design Capital 2012. It is a unique opportunity and there will not be another chance, so the bar has to be set high. Mediocrity is not enough for an excellent result. We must acquire passion, vision and ability to carry things through in order to implement the strategies.

Unfortunately, Finns often seem to be satisfied with “OK” as long as the plans have been well made. Things happen along the way, which may prevent reaching the set goals. The tournament was lost because the players got the flu. The election was a flop because the opposition party got a surprising number of votes. The design year failed because there was not enough time.

The design hype hides a serious threat to the industry. This claim may sound irrational, but an effective advertising campaign is known to kill a new product if it makes the consumers try a novelty and the expectations are not fulfilled.

Let’s begin the planning of a design campaign from the basics. What is the product we are selling or what does the word design mean? The recipient of a message cannot understand the added value of the product if the product itself is shapeless. The theme of the World Design Capital 2012 gives designers a wide variety of ways to approach it. Embedding Design in Life takes us through life and it is hoped that the designers’ input will show in all human processes. The new phenomena of embedding is a generous offer to designers and suitable for dialog between professionals in the field. The message just has to be less complex.

The message also has to be true. The industry must introduce products that utilize the modern design concept. Authorities have to start implementing the principles of service design. The public’s opinion must be heard by city planners and architects. A greener human-centered environment must be built. New fashion and design success stories must emerge. This time OK is just not good enough.

This year the theme of the Helsinki Design Week is storytelling. Stories are remembered because they touch people. During the following days, we will have many opportunities to meet each other and tell stories. Maybe eventually we will find out what the connection is between design and all human processes. The official storyteller for the design week, writer KARI HOTAKAINEN puts it like this: “Life designed, I provided the material.”

Kari Korkman is the founder and director of the Helsinki Design Week.

Photo Chris Vidal

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Helsinki Design Week on 26 August–5 September 2010. See the complete schedule at www.helsinkidesignweek.com.

Jussi Pajunen, Mayor of Helsinki. Photo Chris Vidal.

The Finnish design community received its greatest recognition ever, when Helsinki together with its partner cities Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen and Lahti was nominated to carry the title of World Design Capital for 2012 by the International Council of Societies for Industrial Design last November.

It is certainly a great honor to carry the title, but we are now clearly obliged to act as a trend-setter for other cities to follow. Our starting point for the bid was somewhat an unconventional approach which required us to go beyond the traditional concepts of design. “Embedding Design in Life” was therefore a natural choice as the cross-cutting theme of our submission.

Thanks to a broad consortium including all major public and private partners, we were able to ensure a shared vision and will to succeed. For us the unanimous and ultimate aim of being the world capital of design is to find solutions that improve the way our citizens go about their daily lives. This mission statement can be derived from the core duty of all Finnish local authorities, which is to act as guardians of the citizens’ well-being and their living environment.

WDC2012 Helsinki is fundamentally about using design as a tool in cultural, social, economic and sustainable development. Service design will be applied to make basic services like health care and public transport more user-oriented and efficient. Regarding city planning, design will be utilized in the historical regeneration projects that will dramatically change the urban texture and the face of the city.

The title of World Design Capital may be granted to one city for the period of one year, but its legacy will stretch far beyond these limits of place and time. It requires long-term dedication to seek local answers to global challenges using the best possible design. Our intention is to assemble a grid of like-minded cities that wish to pursue the same ideal.

The Helsinki metropolitan area has a strong design tradition, a unique momentum which is present and a shared vision of becoming a global design-led metropolis. The time to carry the title of World Design Capital is optimal for us now. There are already numerous outstanding initiatives, events and networks in existence that will form the basis for the activities of the World Design Capital festivities during 2012.

The front-runner in terms of events is Helsinki Design Week, the annual festival that offers professionals a unique opportunity to display their skills and versatility. Helsinki Design Week brings together professionals who share a passion for good design.

I invite everyone to find new inspiration from this year’s program and to rediscover Helsinki as a global design city.

Jussi Pajunen

Mayor of Helsinki

Photo Chris Vidal

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Helsinki Design Week on 26 August–5 September 2010. See the complete schedule at www.helsinkidesignweek.com.

For the first time, the Helsinki Design Week production team has produced an exhibition in conjunction with the Habitare Fair. The Designpartners100 exhibition at the Helsinki Fair Centre will be a continuation of the Show100 exhibition which took place at the Cable Factory two years ago. The exhibition will display the top 100 most interesting design products of the year.

In addition to the new location and name, the contents of the Helsinki Design Week’s exhibition have also been renewed. This year’s exhibition includes a larger number of top foreign designers.

The exhibition will display electronics, furniture, lamps, footwear, graphics and architecture. “The multidisciplinary aspect is the key,” exhibition producer MARTINA WUORISTO explains.

All of the design products that are on display in the exhibition meet the three criteria set for the exhibition: idea, form and realization. The ‘idea’ emphasizes the product’s uniqueness, the ‘form’ its usability, aesthetics and attention value, whilst the ‘realization’ represents not only its finishing but also what it communicates – the product must have a story which reaches out to its target group. These stories will also be a part of the Designpartners100 exhibition.

Designpartners100 exhibition at Helsinki Fair Centre (Messuaukio 1), 1–5 September 2010. www.helsinkidesignweek.com

Text Heini Lehtinen

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Helsinki Design Week on 26 August–5 September 2010. See the complete schedule at www.helsinkidesignweek.com.

Helsinki. Photo Paul Williams.

Being selected as the World Design Capital is not a reward for past actions but a recognition of a promising, internationally interesting design city.

Everyone should know by now that Helsinki was selected as the World Design Capital for 2012 at the end of last year. The appointment has been talked about, written about and referred to often enough, however, few people know exactly what the World Design Capital is, how Helsinki was selected or what the year will actually bring.

The World Design Capital concept has been developed by ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design), IFI (International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers) and Icograda (International Council of Graphic Design Associations). The three organizations jointly appoint an international jury who then selects the winning city, which will hold the title of World Design Capital. The honor is bestowed on the winning city every two years. The concept aims to promote rising design cities that are creating examples of good design.

Turin, Italy, was given the honor of being named the first World Design Capital in 2008 and this year the spotlight is on Seoul, South Korea. In 2012, it will be Helsinki’s turn to hold the title along with Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen and Lahti joining the project.

Meeting place for international design

The jury bestows the honor of World Design Capital on a city that it considers to be utilizing design extensively in its activities. In the long term, these cities will form a worldwide network of design cities.

“This is not only about Finnish design because the World Design Capital represents the global design community and is its meeting place,” says PEKKA TIMONEN, the Cultural Director for the City of Helsinki and the Chairman of the WDC 2012 Helsinki project. “One of the meeting places for designers is the Helsinki Design Week, which is an important part of the city’s design culture.”

The theme for Helsinki’s World Design Capital year is Embedding design, which refers to integrating design into the daily lives of the general public as well as into the activities of the communities operating in the city.

“Everything cannot be design, but it can be included in many things,” Timonen says. “The power of design, its way of thinking and creating solutions have not been utilized enough. The aim is for design to become a natural part of various activities, so that its use and appreciation increases.”

As it is Helsinki’s turn in 2012, the World Design Capital 2014 will most likely be awarded to a city outside of Europe. Cape Town, Toronto, Beijing, São Paulo, and Bilbao among others, have already expressed interest in holding the title in 2014.

www.wdc2012helsinki.fi

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Helsinki Design Week on 26 August–5 September 2010. See the complete schedule at www.helsinkidesignweek.com.

Mannerheimintie, Helsinki. Photo Harald Raebiger.

The World Design Capital project is an international concept, but that does not mean the project organizers dictate the events which should be held by the world design capitals. It is more important for each city to have a program that is their own and hence, in August this year, a foundation was established to coordinate the events which will be on the program for Helsinki’s World Design Capital year.

The WDC organization has already received several suggestions for events and letters from interested parties wanting to cooperate from Helsinki, elsewhere in Finland and even from abroad. The official event coordination will not begin until the end of August, when the International Design Foundation, the coordinating body for the WDC Helsinki 2012 program, officially begins its operations. In the future, program suggestions can be sent directly to the foundation through a website that will be opened in the autumn.

From the suggestions, the foundation will compile a list of events which are deemed to be the most appropriate to take place during the WDC 2012 project. The foundation will then go through the program with representatives from design organizations making any possible improvements before final approval is given. The organization will not actually organize the events itself, but will coordinate and support them, taking overall responsibility for the success of the design year.

“We hope to get ideas that will already have people to implement them. The viability of an event depends on whether there are people to implement it,” says PEKKA TIMONEN, the Cultural Director for the City of Helsinki.

“The foundation will operate as a separate unit linking the five host cities, the government and the individual operators. Helsinki is not the only city involved in the project, so therefore having a separate unit is the right solution,” Timonen explains. “All in all, the foundation will employ 10 to 15 people.”

The budget for Helsinki’s WDC year is 15 million euros, but at this point it is still difficult to estimate all the finances related to the project. The acquisition of financing for different events through the foundation has remained at the center of debate for as long as there has been a discussion about the foundation. According to Timonen, the foundation is primarily responsible for the overall project and for international contractual obligations. It is possible to apply for financing through the foundation for individual programs and projects, but the foundation’s resources for providing financial assistance are limited.

The first program frame for the WDC 2012 project will be completed in April 2011, after which it will be developed further until 2012.

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Helsinki Design Week on 26 August–5 September 2010. See the complete schedule at www.helsinkidesignweek.com.

Terrace house at Pikku-Huopalahti, Helsinki. Photo Mika Lappalainen.

At the end of September, the members of the international organization, whose headquarters are located in Montreal, Canada, will come to Helsinki to take part in ICSID’s board meeting. The Executive Board will hold a two-day meeting in Helsinki, during which the board members will sign an agreement that will confirm Helsinki as the World Design Capital for 2012.  The board members also have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with Helsinki design during their stay.

The President of the ICSID Board MARK BREITENBERG is also a Provost of the California College of the Arts. In addition to Breitenberg, the board consists of ten highly esteemed designers, researchers and leaders of design organizations from all over the world. Members of the international board come from the United States, Denmark, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Japan and South Africa. Finland’s own member, TAPANI HYVÖNEN, a Finnish designer and the Vice President of the Finnish Association of Designers Ornamo, was elected to the board in December 2009.

“The board contains both business and academic expertise. It is a small body of experts, however, they are extremely global,” says KAARINA GOULD, the WDC 2012 foundation’s program director.

New facilities that will serve as a meeting place for people, events and ideas during Helsinki’s WDC 2012 project will be opened in connection with the visit.

International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, www.icsid.org

International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers, www.ifiworld.org

International Council of Graphic Design Associations, www.icograda.org

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Helsinki Design Week on 26 August–5 September 2010. See the complete schedule at www.helsinkidesignweek.com.

Airan Berg. Photo Nick Mangafas.

When Linz was the European Capital of Culture in 2009, the director of performing arts was a man named AIRAN BERG. Today Berg, who was born in Israel and studied theatrical arts in the United States, applies his stage experience in a different environment.

During 2009, Berg ran a school project called “I Like to Move It, Move It” that was aimed at strengthening children’s self-esteem by making theater a part of their everyday learning. Thirty artistic teams worked in 100 schools during the year to produce small performances with the children.

“Creativity is not sufficiently present in the education debate. We have to prepare children for surprises. There is no way to know what the world and working life will be like in 20 years,” Berg explains.

According to Berg, design, theater and the educational world or any other combination of arts, science and life will not differ much from each other.

“Creativity is an important theme in everything we do, from learning to problem solving. I myself like to look for approaches from movies, for example. It has been said that the school system doesn’t require development but a revolution.”

Whilst in Helsinki Airan Berg will take the floor at the PechaKuchaNight where he will share more of his views on creativity and learning, or perhaps on something completely different – it’s all up to the speaker.

PechaKuchaNight, 2 September 2010, Cable Factory. Tickets 20 €. www.helsinkidesignweek.com

Text Simo Vassinen Photo Nick Mangafas

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Helsinki Design Week on 26 August–5 September 2010. See the complete schedule at www.helsinkidesignweek.com.

Travis Price.

“During the early stages of this new century a creative chaos has prevailing in Finland. Anything works, but a touch of craziness and architectural salsa will help Finland to find its own tango.” This is how the American architect, TRAVIS PRICE mystically describes his views on Finland.

During the summer, Price and a group of thirty design and architecture students from Finland and the United States have built a Kalevalakehto installation within the confines of Seurasaari. The work fits well in the historical idyll. It’s a part of Price’s global Spirit of Place/Spirit of Design project that explores the spirit of different environments through construction.

Kalevalakehto, pienoismalli.

“I’m fascinated by the secret mysteries of Kalevala, like Väinämöinen’s transformations in Tuonela. To move between the nature and the timeless spiritual world is like the music of the Kantele which creates mysteries that are present within the Finnish people every day,” Price says.

At the Seurasaari exhibition glass, wood and steel works will be combined with music, dance and textile design during the opening ceremony. Price’s words are convincing, the experience is sure to be transcendental at the very least. “Just like the ancient Greek gods inspired the architecture for centuries, in the modern world we will all one day become Kalevala jedi knights.”

Travis Price is also one of the PechaKuchaNight speakers on 2 September 2010.

Kalevalakehto will be opened at Seurasaari on Helsinki Design Week’s opening night on 26 August 2010. Kalevalakehto is open to public on the 26th and 27th of August. Other times the key can be requested from the seurasaari foundation.

PechaKuchaNight 2 September 2010 at the Cable Factory. Tickets 20 €. www.helsinkidesignweek.com

Text Simo Vassinen

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Helsinki Design Week on 26 August–5 September 2010. See the complete schedule at www.helsinkidesignweek.com.