Forty years on for Temppeliaukio Church

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Today it may be taken for granted than anyone visiting Helsinki will include the Temppeliaukio Church in Töölö on their itinerary, and the tour buses are disgorging Japanese tourists in front of the building already before the doors open in the morning, but forty years ago it was a different story.
      The submerged and stone-hewed church, designed by the architect brothers Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen, was opened for consecration on September 28th 1969, after the brothers had won a competition nine years earlier.
     
At the time there was widespread criticism among more conservative architects for the radical design, and the public - perhaps spurred on by rumours of the staggering cost of the domed copper roofing - also turned their thumbs down at the newcomer.
      It was variously described as "the mosque in the rock" and even "the anti-devil bunker".
      It took fully thirty years before the Finnish Architecture Museum included the church in an exhibition, but by that time the public's mood had changed and in a 2003 Helsingin Sanomat poll Temppeliaukio was voted into the top ten of Finnish buildings created before and after Independence.
     
     
We shall be including a longer article on the "Church in the Rock" in our weeklies on Tuesday. Today there will be an event in the building (at Lutherinkatu 3) at which architect Timo Suomalainen, now 81, will talk about the creation of the church.


Links:
  Temppeliaukio Church, Helsinki, 360° panorama
  Sacred Destinations

Helsingin Sanomat