The paper presents aspects of town and forest architecture. A feature of the Finnish building tradition is that the forest is allowed to grow next to buildings. After the Second World War a new type of town was created in Finland, ”the forest town”. The most prominent feature of the history of Finnish architecture, from national romanticism to functionalism and up to the present day, is the modification of international ideals to a certain ”forest culture” style.
The paper is based on a lecture given in the seminar ‘The forest as a Finnish cultural entity’, held in Helsinki in 1986. The PDF includes a summary in English.
The Finnish forest was elevated into an appreciated artistic motif by Werner Holmberg with his picture ”The Finnish conifer forest” in 1858. The second significant period was during national romanticism in the 1980’s, when the decorative beauty of the winter forests was discovered. At the turn of the century, the forest obtained a central national symbolic significance, and many leading artists regarded increased cuttings as a rape of the forests. Since that period, individual artists have succeeded in bringing new features in the art history of our forests.
The paper is based on a lecture given in the seminar ‘The forest as a Finnish cultural entity’, held in Helsinki in 1986. The PDF includes a summary in English.