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On a windswept late November evening at the edge of the waterfront in Helsinki’s Katajanokka harbour, a huge, new white building shines brightly in the wintery night sky, its curving, illuminated walls undulating like a giant concertina of corrugated card.
To one side, monolithic cruise ships destined for Stockholm or Tallinn, just across the Gulf of Finland, lie temporarily dormant, while to the other the grand, pastel-coloured, neoclassical palaces and municipal buildings of the Christmas market-filled Senate Square are a reminder of the city’s 19th-century past as part of the Russian empire.
Sustainably built to last for at least the next 100 years using carbon-storing Finnish and Swedish timber, the white Katajanokan Laituri building is home to not only the headquarters of Finnish forestry company Stora Enso, but also the newly opened, eco-friendly hotel, Solo Sokos Pier 4.
The building is the latest in a new wave of grand-scale, sustainable, wooden constructions, which, alongside the city’s clean air – it is one of the least polluted in Europe and has a high proportion of green-certified hotels (close to 90%) – helped Helsinki top the Global Destination Sustainability (GDS) Index and be named the world’s most sustainable travel destination.
As I walk into Katajanokan Laituri’s minimalist, circular entrance hall, with its round central skylight, I’m greeted by the sound of birdsong and gentle ambient music. It feels like the perfect accompaniment to the classically “Finimalist” space – as Finland’s renowned, often minimalist design has been nicknamed. It is a Scandi cross between a peaceful zen garden, a 1960s cathedral and the inside of a head of garlic made of blond wood.
The hotel uses renewable electricity and 85% of the restaurant’s ingredients are sourced from within Finland. Drinking glasses are made from recycled beer bottles and leftover building materials have been repurposed into small tables for the lobby cafe. The specially commissioned “soundscape”, meanwhile, was designed as part of the building’s aim to help guests connect with nature.
“We want you to feel calm even though you’re in the city centre of Helsinki,” says Selina Anttinen of Anttinen Oiva Architects, who designed the building. “Like you’re relaxing in a Finnish forest.”
Connecting to nature is also a key part of Helsinki city council’s plans for the Katajanokka area.
Technically an island, but in fact more of a heart-shaped headland jutting out from Helsinki’s eastern shore, Katajanokka is home to a mix of historic, redbrick maritime buildings and art nouveau apartment blocks, but is now undergoing a major transformation.
Outside the hotel’s terrace, alongside the cobbled streets still gritted from the previous week’s snowfall, bulldozers were hard at work preparing the land for a new waterfront promenade and cycle path running 30km around the peninsula.
“The idea is to improve access to the water so that the sea will feel closer than before,” says Anni Sinnemäki, Helsinki’s deputy mayor. “Although we have always been by the sea, after these changes, people will feel more connected to nature. When you get closer to it, you’re more connected to the changes in nature and the beauty of it.
“There’s also an obligation that the shoreline cannot be private,” she continues. “Our philosophy when developing Helsinki as a tourist destination is that we think of it from the local perspective. We shouldn’t only build things for tourists. It’s much better that the city is good for those who live here. Then it’s attractive for tourists as well.”
In addition to the plans for the promenade, a major international architectural competition is also under way to build a new architecture and design museum, bringing together the collections of the two existing – but currently separate – Architecture and Design Museums into one building.
The new museum is not expected to open until 2030, but there’s already plenty to see in Katajanokka, as I discover on a walking tour of the area with Helsinki Guides.
Just beyond the tram tracks behind the hotel, steep hilly streets are filled with 19th-century buildings in shades of dusky rose and ochre and with Rapunzel-style turrets and ornately carved wooden doors in the national romantic style – Finland’s version of art nouveau. Originally built for Russian officers, the area later became Katajonokka’s bohemian quarter and was the childhood home of Moomins author Tove Jansson from 1914 to 1933.
On the other side of the tram tracks, the green and gold domes of the 1868 Orthodox Uspenski Cathedral loom high on a hilltop, like a turbaned Byzantine ogre looking down below.
Stora Enso’s previous office building, Norrmén House, is also one of Katajanokka’s key landmarks. With its smooth marble facade and grid of square windows, the “Sugar Cube”, as it’s popularly known, was designed by renowned Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto in 1962, and still functions primarily as offices. The building’s top floor, however, has recently been converted into a fashionable Asian fusion restaurant, Toppa, complete with Aalto’s original “beehive” pendant lamps and impressive views out to the bay beyond.
My tour guide Jaana Woll explains that rather than replacing existing buildings, the Finnish philosophy is to take a more make-do-and-mend approach, looking to renovate, repurpose and recycle.
“Finland has traditionally been a poor, rural nation of fishers and agriculture workers,” she says. “We don’t have oil but one area we can compete in is with applied arts and thinking. Design comes from craftsmanship and problem-solving, and now there’s more and more emphasis on sustainability and how long things can last, so we’re always looking at the life cycle of materials.”
My Katajanokka lunch destination seems to sum up Jaana’s point. In a redbrick former warehouse building just around the corner from the Pier 4 hotel, I tuck into soft flaking, pan-fried wild fish in a warm blanket of brown butter sauce at the Green Michelin-starred Nokka (three courses €49), which specialises in organic, wild and sustainable Finnish ingredients and minimising waste.
By the time I’ve finished lunch, it’s dark outside and as the sound of carols echoes from the nearby Christmas market. I can’t resist one last classically Finnish – and suitably sustainable – experience. Next door to Katajanokan Laituri, a low-rise wooden building on the waterfront is home to the Allas Sea Pool and Sauna, and after an invigorating swim looking out to sea from the heated pool, I join locals easing off the stress of their working day in the sauna.
As the dry heat rising up from the coals fills my lungs, I can almost feel my skin cells renewing. Surely the ultimate regeneration.
Eddi Fiegel was a guest of Helsinki Partners. The Solo Sokos Pier 4 Hotel has double rooms from €165 B&B
