ALA architects have produced a new masterplan for the South Harbour. This area really should be the centrepiece of Helsinki for the visitor as well as contributing to the urban centre for the average resident. The connection to the sea established by the original plan and somewhat undermined since will be improved greatly by the ALA masterplan by bringing the park down to the sea and making a new bridge connection with new facilities on either side of the harbour, its all pretty sensible and should add up to a smooth but large transformation of the area. Also included is a plan for a luxury hotel by Herzog and DeMeuron which will probably draw more headlines and which looks like a bit of shiny transplanted nationalism (on plan it looks like the a swiss cross), its hard to tell if it will be any good but I generally really like H&DM projects so hopefully will get built also. Its the shiny building in the image above.
As an aside the plans for Helsinki over the next few years when looked at together are quite staggering, I’ll need to make a post here soon about this slow drip of new projects and what we can expect greater Helsinki to be like in ten years time. There are no real Supermodernist signature buildings by the Starchitects but much smaller scale building which will add up to quite big changes for Helsinki.
(All images are copright ALA Architects)
3 Comments
Don’t have much to say on the plans for Helsinki, but I love that top picture, far more inspiring than the grey sky I see out of my study window.
..went to his lecture on this in Otaniemi. It struck me that the final scheme wasn’t actually that interesting- yet makes complete commercial sense. An efficient hotel is perhaps like an efficient prison in that it administered from a central location, with the check-in desk forming the hub of the wheel. Creating a cross shape (and Swiss cross at that) is then maybe a more commercially driven decision than a creative one. Then to simply copy and paste one floor atop the next with perhaps a balcony terrace to level 2 - well, yawn. He showed a slide of maybe 80 preliminary models for the design, I swear I’ve seen some of those models before on other projects!
The wave form glass cladding may be a redeeming feature, but who knows how the value engineering will drive things. Finland has its own brilliant architects, do we really need a clever and aptly successful Swiss bloke with a second-rate idea watered down by harsh commercial decisions? (hey it looks like a ice palace - not particularly innovative)
David,
First off thanks for posting your thoughts, I agree basically with evrything you are saying, the plan is as you have written. It might be worth also raising a couple of other points I have thought of since writing this post.
H&dM were and probably will always be best at materials and the ‘materialisation’ of a project. I would cite Goetz, SBB, Allianz Arena just as the tip of the iceberg to illustrate my case.
However they seem to me very average in space planning and spatial design.
So this project will really succeed or fail purely on this waveform glass cladding. That case really is still there to be proven.
Have you read the latest ark magazine by the way, they really don’t like the whole scheme, and bring up a number of important points?
One last thing, I don’t think a very average plan is necessarily a big problem for the design to be sucessful, but size, cladding and realtionship with the waterfront are really all key here and that’s all still to be proved for me.