Wanted: New ideas for Design Capital 2012
Carpet washing jetties transformed into dance pavilions, tram tracks lit with LEDs
By Marja Salmela
The low wooden jetties that have traditionally been used for washing clothes and rugs are disappearing from the Helsinki shores.
Because the sea water is gradually becoming more and more polluted, the Port of Helsinki has decided to discontinue the upkeep of the jetties.
But does the fun city culture typical of Helsinki have to disappear as well?
Definitely not, if you ask Salla Hoppu, Johanna Iivonen, Maria Isotupa, Päivi Kaartinen, Pia Kilpinen, and Leila Koivulehto.
This group of six cheerful ladies working for the Helsinki City Planning Department took the first prize in the department’s competition, where ideas were sought on how to improve and enliven the urban environment when Helsinki becomes the World Design Capital in 2012.
In the women’s view, in the future the carpet-washing jetties could be used as meeting places by the city-dwellers.
In Marjaniemi there could be a sauna, in Taivallahti a dance pavilion, along the Sörnäinen waterfront boulevard an open-air theatre, in Tervasaari a Baltic herring market, in Munkkiniemi a flower market…
These are just a few of examples of the numerous possibilities the jetties could offer to the Helsinki residents.
The women hope that residents from the various city districts would join in the effort to save the jetties and to come up with ideas, events, and activities that they would like to see in their neighbourhood.
The Kaivopuisto jetty is one that the City of Helsinki is very likely to spare, that much is known. The jetty has become something of a tourist sight for foreign visitors, who goggle at people actually washing their carpets out there in public and then leaving them there to dry...
And the answer is yes, occasionally the carpets do disappear, but not half as often as one might imagine.
The working group even suggests a guided bicycle tour from jetty to jetty.
They could also be tied in to a canoeing tour - after all, they are all naturally on the waterfront.
In all, Helsinki has 14 carpet-washing jetties, from Lauttasaari in the west to Vartiokylä in the east.
According to City of Helsinki Cultural Director Pekka Timonen, Chairman of the WDC 2012, the jetties represent exactly what is expected from the Design Capital year, in other words something that will add to the everyday life of the residents.
And it seems there might even be some funds to get the project moving.
Timonen also commends the same working group’s suggestion to install LED lights on the capital’s tram tracks. Each tram line would have its unique colour.
“It would be a great way to emphasise the importance of public transportation”, Timonen enthuses.
People at the City Planning Office also came up with other daring suggestions.
If the Katajanokka "wow architecture" hotel doesn't get built, then a sandy beach could be set up in its place in the same fashion as has been done successfully in Paris on the Seine or in Berlin on the banks of the River Spree.
To emphasise the city’s multiculturalism, one working group suggests a bazaar to be set up on the Väinö Tanner Square in Sörnäinen, in which Helsinki’s residents of foreign extraction could sell food and other stuff.
The group would have the entire area covered with mosaic paving.
Helsinki will be the World Design Capital in 2012, and there is little time to lose in planning ways to brighten the place up before then.
As the attached article indicates, Helsinki can do "drab" and "scruffy" just as well as the next city, and quite possibly rather better.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 30.3.2010
More on this subject:
 The 2012 World Design Capital has some cleaning up to be done
Previously in HS International Edition:
Helsinki wins title of World Design Capital 2012 (26.11.2009)
Links:
Helsinki World Design Capital 2012
MARJA SALMELA / Helsingin Sanomat
marja.salmela@hs.fi
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| 30.3.2010 - THIS WEEK |
Wanted: New ideas for Design Capital 2012
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