Helsinki’s Central Station is a landmark in more ways than one: it’s one of the most central and easily recognized buildings in the city, it’s one of the finest buildings by one of Finland’s best-known architects, Eliel Saarinen, it marks a transition in architectural styles, and it has roots deep in the politics of the early 20th century.
Aside from that, it’s also an important functioning transit hub, with almost a quarter million passengers a day among its 400,000 daily visitors. Nearly all the city’s tram lines converge there, and there’s a metro station underneath, and it’s surrounded by major shopping centers.
The station was built at a crossing point in Finland’s history, the early 20th century. Ruled since the Napoleonic wars as a semi-autonomous part of Russia, it grew as the western end of Russia’s rails and trade. The new station, far bigger than its predecessor, was meant for that role, but by the time it was completed in 1919, Finland was independent and it became a symbol of that.
George G recognized these doors as our One-Clue Mystery clue this week
Saarinen’s design for the building is far from his first plan for it: his first designs reflected the ‘national romantic’ style he and his partner Herman Geselius had developed when they designed the Finnish National Museum a few years earlier.
New trends in design were flourishing in many parts of Europe—the styles we’ve come to know as Art Nouveau or Jugendstil—and Saarinen traveled to study them, developing his own take on them over time. Helsinki Central is perched somewhere along the transition, with elements that look back to national romanticism, as well as some that seem to foreshadow Art Deco.
The interiors, despite the many re-arrangements and redevelopments over the years, keep their original styling and big spaces. Changing times have turned large waiting rooms into cafes and restaurants; floor-level spaces have been given over to retail kiosks, but there is still the sense of entering a special place, a welcoming lobby for the city.
Decorative details abound; they’ve even been carried over to some of the extensions that have been built over the years.
Behind the main station building, an elaborate glass train shed covers most of the tracks. The building of the first station on the site, in the 1850s, made a major change in the city’s geography; in order to bring the tracks to the narrow peninsula that was downtown Helsinki, a large bay was filled in and added to the city’s core.
When the station was built, it also provided space for the city’s central post office and for the railway administration; both have moved elsewhere, freeing more space in the station. Across from one side, a street-level bus terminal provides connections to local and regional services.
Welcoming visitors to the station are The Lantern Bearers, popularly called the Stone Men. Each weighs about twelve tons. Two to each side of the main entrance, they’re the work of Emil Wikstrom, and have become the mascots of VR, Finland’s rail carrier.
The station is only one of Saarinen’s important contributions to Helsinki and Finland. His first major work was the Finnish pavilion at the 1900 Paris World Fair, he was a major city planner for Helsinki and several other Finnish cities and designed some of the first postage stamps issued by independent Finland in 1917. He moved to the U.S. in 1923 and was a major influence on numbers of later architects, including his son Eero.
