Billnäs "Building Pharmacy" offers ideas and spare parts for repair of old buildings
By Milla von Konow
On a hill in the middle of an old ironworks in Billnäs stands a magnificent log building. The parsonage was built in 1768, but it has not been on this spot for very long. The condemned building was moved a few years ago from nearby Perniö, and now serves as an exhibition building and a shop.
In the rooms of the buildings the visitor can see the various phases of construction, the different materials, and the surface treatments used in different periods.
There are rooms reflecting the style of the 1840s, 1870s, 1890s, and the 1920s.
The parsonage is an idea bank for builders and repairers. It is also a business, called Rakennusapteekki ("Building Pharmacy"), offering ideas on living in an old building while saving that which is old. Lest it look like a museum, the old parsonage has a model bath room with a modern toilet and a heat pump system.
The Building Pharmacy sells mounts, locks, wallpaper, signs, lamps, and building materials. There are thousands of windows in its storerooms, dismantled tiled wood-burning stoves, and everything in between.
"The message is, save, save, save", says the founder and one of the owners, Anette Ringbom.
The story behind it all is quite ordinary. Ringbom, an educational scientist, and her husband, economist Jari Ahlqvist, moved here from Helsinki in the early 1990s.
They had bought an old house in Billnäs and started to refurbish it.
Like many others, they became frustrated at the lack of good spare parts and practical knowhow, and so they set up their own business. The bank of spare parts, which is constantly being added to, started up nine years ago. The Building Pharmacy company had its eight birthday in February.
A blacksmith works full time hammering out fittings, and a retired locksmith shows up most days.
"There isn't a lock that he can't fix. Nearly always I can promise that a real key can be found somewhere."
The idea for the Building Pharmacy is certainly not unique. Another such centre is in Gysinge, in Sweden. An on-line comparison indicates that the products at the Gysinge centrum för byggnadsvård (www.gysinge.nu) are approximately the same price as they are in the Building Pharmacy.
Anette Ringbom compares Finland and Sweden:
"In Sweden, companies specialised in building preservation operate as businesses, even though they may be small. In Finland, there is a tendency to resort to subsidies and employment funding. The benefit is often short-lived", she says.
"Culture, protection of buildings, is not supposed to cost anything here."
The Building Pharmacy has operated in cooperation with the local Sydväst Polytechnic, and EU money helped in the early stages.
Window restoration is an important part of the operation. About 20 people have taken the one-year course, and they are all still at work in Billnäs.
"We do not compete in this business. The more we work together, the easier it is to get big orders", Ringbom says.
The Building Pharmacy has won prizes - most recently the Finnish Association of Architects prize for sustainable development. A handbook that it recently published has also won praise.
In the summer Billnäs often buzzes with people on their way to the Building Pharmacy. In the middle of the winter it is more restful, and there are few visitors. However, appearances are deceptive.
"In the winter we deal with large restoration projects for cities and municipalities. There can be 300 windows in a single multi-storey building.
Restoration is so much the rage, that the word has been used somewhat carelessly, Ringbom complains.
Advertisers talk about it in connection with new windows, for instance.
Next to the old parsonage of Billnäs, a school building that has been moved next to it is being repaired. Training and exhibition rooms will be set up there to meet the needs of an ever-expanding business.
Already next summer short courses will be held there, in window repair, decorative painting, among other things.
Jari Ahlqvist is especially proud of one of the seminars he has organised. A banking and real estate company wanted to train its personnel to speak with some expertise about old houses and apartments.
How beautiful a worn surface can be! At the Building pharmacy, the milieu speaks for itself.
Although aficionados of scrap heaps feel that places like the Building Pharmacy are expensive, people at a loss to find what they need for home repairs are ecstatic to find an item they need, and usually for less than it would cost in a large city.
Nearly every time that the door opens, someone with questions about his or her own house - or someone else who is the middle of repairing one - will come in.
"The biggest problem is a shortage of skilled labour. Work morale is at rock bottom; more training is needed", Ringbom says.
"There are also people who come, who go completely quiet, thinking, ‘so we could have done it like this - now it's too late'."
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 24.3.2005
Helsingin Sanomat
|
| 28.3.2006 - THIS WEEK |
 Billnäs "Building Pharmacy" offers ideas and spare parts for repair of old buildings |
|
