Book of old photos gives sightseeing tour of Helsinki 100 years ago
Helsinki City Museum publishes book of legendary photographer Signe Brander
By Antti Manninen
The population of Helsinki reached 100,000 in 1902. The population had tripled in three decades.
The city’s massive growth and the changes underway inspired Helsinki architects and municipal decision-makers 100 years ago to preserve the disappearing urban landscape typified by wooden houses.
To that end, the Helsinki City Council decided in 1906 to set up a Board of Antiquities. The following year the board hired photographer Signe Brander (1869 - 1942) to document city landscapes.
The decision has later been praised as a wise and far-reaching one.
Brander took pictures of Helsinki for nearly seven years, from 1907 to 1913. Her work resulted in 907 photos which still form the core of the collection of the picture archive of the Helsinki City Museum.
The museum has now published its first work of Signe Brander’s photographs. Photographer Jan Alanco and researcher Riitta Pakarinen have produced a book containing about 100 of Signe Brander’s best pictures of Helsinki.
Not many books have been published of Helsinki’s history that would not contain at least a few pictures taken by Signe Brander in the early 20th century. However, it is only now that an entire book has been published devoted exclusively to her work.
The Helsinki Board of Antiquities included some of the foremost experts of cultural history and cityscapes at the time, including the architect, Professor Gustaf Nyström, who was the head of town planning in Helsinki. The board gave Brander a plan for the locations for her photographs. They were areas that were to undergo considerable changes in subsequent years.
Helsinki experienced rapid growth and extensive changes in the early 20th century. The construction of the Töölö and Eira districts was beginning, and the one- and two-storey wooden buildings began to give way to higher stone buildings.
Riitta Pakarinen believes that the choice of Signe Brander as Helsinki’s own photographer was a foregone conclusion. She had already made her mark as a talented photographer, especially in the field of landscape photography.
Born in the rural community of Parkano, Brander studied to be a teacher of drawing in Helsinki, but she never worked in teaching. She became a photographer, although she did not like taking portrait pictures, and never enjoyed working in a studio. She certainly had experience in that field, from her work in a Helsinki photo shop. However, she really wanted to get out into the field.
Considering the clumsy technology that was available to her at the time, Signe Brander took very skilful pictures of the city and its landscapes.
Stiff architectural photographs were not good enough for her. People and details were the secret of the appeal of her pictures. Brander’s photographs nearly always included passers-by - children, merchants, police, or pets.
Most of those in the picture were there by chance. Brander had asked them to stop for a moment for the photograph. Judging from the good-natured expressions on people’s faces, Brander was able to make her request in a positive manner, and awaken the curiosity of the local residents.
Photography was a relatively new art form, and a woman as a landscape photographer was rare indeed.
Sometimes there were curious details in the pictures, such as a dog following tram tracks, or an unharnessed horse standing in the middle of a yard.
The pictures in the book are arranged so as to take the reader on a sightseeing tour of the Helsinki of a century ago.
The journey begins in Hermanni, moves south to Hakaniemi and Kruunuhaka to the southern parts of the city, from where it continues via Kamppi to Töölö.
Accompanying each photo is a detailed original map showing exactly where the picture was taken, and the angle that was used.
The map is an indispensable aide for today’s readers, because in many locations the city has become quite unrecognisable. For instance, Töölö was largely rural - an area where Russians grew vegetables for the people of Helsinki.
There was a falling-out between Brander and the Board of Antiquities in 1913.
There are no records that would reveal the reason for the trouble, but Pakarinen believes that the dispute may simply have involved money.
The Helsinki City Museum hired a new photographer to replace Signe Brander, but the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 put an end to systematic photography of the urban environment for decades.
Brander continued her profession in different parts of Finland. She took pictures of manor houses and other subjects. In the 1930s her health deteriorated, and her eyesight suffered from glaucoma.
In 1941 Brander was hospitalised in the Kivelä Hospital. When war broke out, patients were transferred from there to the Nikkilä mental hospital.
The transfer had nothing to do with Brander’s mental health, although such theories had been put forward. In the confused wartime conditions, more than 100 patients in the Nikkilä Hospital died of hunger in 1942.
One of them was Signe Brander, the legendary city photographer of Helsinki, who was buried in a mass grave along with other patients.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 16.1.2005
More on this subject:
 Signe - a true professional
ANTTI MANNINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
antti.manninen@hs.fi
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Book of old photos gives sightseeing tour of Helsinki 100 years ago
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