Norwegian investor determined to pursue controversial hotel project in Helsinki

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Norwegian investor Arthur Buchardt does not intend to back down from his plans to erect a new hotel on a prominent site in Helsinki’s Katajanokka district, despite the heavy criticism the design of the intended structure has encountered.
      “It does not come to me as a surprise that the undertaking is being protested against. I have experienced similar reactions in other cities as well”, Buchardt revealed when interviewed over the telephone from Oslo.
      Buchardt is expecting the layout of the hotel and the granting of its building permit to be appealed against in any case.
      The handling of the appeals may take a couple of years.
     
“I can wait. I have plenty to do. I am currently having hotels built in Oslo, Gothenburg, and Stockholm."
      The intended location of Helsinki’s design hotel is problematic, Buchardt admits.
      “That is precisely why I wanted some of the best architects in the world, the Swiss team of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron to design it.”
     
The so-called Waterfront Hotel would be erected in Helsinki’s Katajanokka, right next to another controversial building, the Stora Enso headquarters, designed by Alvar Aalto and built in 1961. The hotel is to replace an old harbour terminal.
      On Thursday the contentious project that has already once been diluted was handled again by the City Planning Committee, but the plans still remain on the table.
      A couple of hours before the meeting no fewer than 34 professors of architecture and urban planning demanded the undertaking be halted. The petition signers were led by academic Juha Leiviskä.
      According to the experts, the hotel does not fit in its present form in the old harbour terminal site.
      The National Board of Antiquities and the Uusimaa Regional Environment Centre have already previously expressed their negative attitude towards the project.
     
Decision-makers, too, have diverse views with regard to the scheme. It is given the green light by the National Coalition and the Social Democrats but even the Green League does not automatically dismiss the plans.
      The Left Alliance, on the other hand, is dead set against the proposed design. Also the Centre Party seems quite critical towards it in its present form.
      The committee will discuss the matter again in a week’s time.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  More than a thousand new hotel rooms in prospect in Helsinki (4.4.2007)
  Stora Enso again chooses white marble for main building (23.2.2007)

Helsingin Sanomat