Recently in Finland Category

I love a good museum as much as the next guy, but when the weather's nice, I prefer to be outdoors. Fortunately, there's a museum in Helsinki that combines both experiences. Open this year from May 15th, the Seurasaari Open-Air Museum is an outdoor ethnographic museum dedicated to showing life in the Finnish countryside from the 18th to the 20th century. With 87 historic buildings from the different provinces of Finland, a journey through its winding lanes and wooded paths is like a trip back in time, with farmhouses, small cottages, and wooden churches dotting the landscape. Among the highlights is the Niemelä tenant farm, which contains a residential cottage, a milk storeroom, a stable, a cowshed, a pigsty, and a boathouse that date back to 1844. The Kurssi Farmstead, meanwhile, has a two-story farmhouse with a variety of lofts, dining areas, and hidden nooks that show the creativity of its builders. Explore the various buildings and then treat yourself to a snack at Café Antin Kaffeliiteri, which offers homemade traditional Finnish pastries in an old shed next to Antti farmsted. Best of all, the museum is located on a separate island that's connected by bridge to the mainland, so it's easy to imagine what it was like for the early Finns without being reminded of the modern age with sounds of traffic and cell phones. Guests at the Hotel Kämp, Helsinki might enjoy a stroll through Finland from long ago.

[image via Seurasaasi]

Helsinki's Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art is named after a medical term for a crossing point of optic nerves. It lives up to this unusual moniker with an amazingly diverse collection of art that draws from all aspects of Finnish society, finding commonality in form and beauty. The museum houses the contemporary collection of the Finnish National Gallery, with over 9,000 pieces of art representing the cutting edge of beauty and design in this Scandinavian style capital. The permanent collection is a veritable who's who of 20th and 21st century Finnish art, with work from masters such as Markus Heikkerö and Elina Hakaniemi. The building itself is a modern art masterpiece. Designed by American architect Steven Holl, it resembles a curved metallic wave washing over downtown Helsinki, and while it caused quite a stir when it was unveiled in 1998, it's now the pride of the city. The museum is just minutes from the Hotel Kämp, Helsinki, a member of Starwood's Luxury Collection.

[image via floornature.de]

Very few places celebrate design with as much enthusiasm as the Scandinavians. As the birthplace of some of the most iconic furniture and houseware designs of the twentieth century, this Nordic conglomerate of breathtaking countries has every reason to rejoice. Finland's ultra-cool capital Helsinki, features an entire neighborhood devoted to regional fashions, objects for the home, accessories, art, antiques, and even museums and restaurants where design takes center stage. Known as Design District Helsinki, the region is a network of 25 streets brimming with 170 distinctive boutiques, galleries, and cafes.

Step outside the door of the fabulous Hotel Kamp, and you're immediately in the midst of it all. Marimekko, Aarikka, Vuokko, and Iitalla, four of the most revered names in Finnish design, are right there on the very same street. Just across Esplanade Park, Alvar Aalto's modernist armchairs, tea trolleys, and hanging lamps fill the Artek Store, which leads toward Uudenmaankatu, where you'll find the highest concentration of shops. Try IVANAhelsinki for darling frocks plastered with animal prints, or the elegant pearl and gold creations of Anna Heino Jewellery. With so many options for great local design, I just can't decide on a favorite. Who's your favorite Finnish designer?

Over the past hundred years, Finland has emerged as a world capital of design, creating furniture, toys, electronics, clothing, jewelry, and household items that embody the country's uniquely modern sensibilities. An excellent overview of the style can be found at the Helsinki Design Museum, which has more than 35,000 objects that represent the best of 20th and 21st century Finnish design. The Finnish aesthetic is captured perfectly in everyday objects such as a 1941 Paavo Tynell table lamp, a 1951 set of colorful stacking glasses from Saara Hopea, and a 1965 Haimi Karuselli chair (pictured) by legendary Finnish furniture designer Yrjö Kukkapuro. While many of the pieces in the museum have a decidedly futuristic quality to them, you'll find several that provide a glimpse of the style's roots in the national Romantic Movement of late 1800's and early 1900's, which made people take a second look at the country's growing industrial landscape and think about ways to make it more pleasing to the eye. The museum is less than one kilometer away from the Hotel Kämp, a member of Starwood's Luxury Collection and itself an example of exquisite Finnish design.

Helsinki, home of the Hotel Kamp, is a beautiful city. It's also one that is ahead of the tourism curve. The local tourist authority is offering the services of free personzlied tours by English-speaking guides called City Sherpas. Guests are invited to choose a City Sherpa they feel is right for them (they range in age from their twenties to their sixties and offer specialites as diverse as punk-rock record shopping, long distance hiking and ballroom dancing advice. Helsinki even offers a City Sherpa blog with testimonials from visitors, local information and plenty of pictures.