Sacred Spaces – Finnish exhibition in Hungary

By: Gyarmathy Dóra, Hungarian Radio

---

An exhibition of the modern Finnish church architecture was opened last week in Budapest. The modern Finnish church architecture is unique in the world considering quantity and quality either. After the World War II, between 1939 and 1995, almost 200 churches were built in the Northern-European country. One of the reasons of this revival was the industrialization. Certainly there had been churches before the World War but most of them weren’t stone churches. From the 15th century wood was used as the primary building material for churches in Finnland. In the middle of the 20th century, as people moved to the towns, more and more sacred spaces were necessary. These churches are the results of official architectural competitions, so these are the choice of the Finnish architecture. Besides the well-known Finnish architects many famous artists took part in the furnishing, the planning of the textiles and other pieces in the churches.

The most important characteristic of the modern Finnish church architecture is the interaction between light and space. One of the innovations of the architects was the opening of the space. Earlier the churches were closed and darker spaces bordered with four walls. Erik Bryggman substituted one of the walls with glasses and thus let the light indoors. Another important characteristic is the near-natural aspect. The sunshine comes into the church, the people inside the church could see the nature around the building. The altar itself is a window to the nature in the case of the university chapel in Otaniemi thus the nature becomes a sacred space also. Light, sunshine, trees around the building… – that is the decoration of the modern Finnish churches.

The new, „Sacred Spaces – Modern Finnish Church Architecture” exhibition presents 12 chruches of the 200. Among them the famous  Temppeliaukio (Rock) Church in Helsinki, which was planned in 1968-1969 by Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen and became popular among tourists short after being finished. Besides the photographs of Jari Jetsonen plans and models show the churches of the architects, Erik Bryggman, Kaija and Heikki Siren, Alvar Aalto, Viljo Revell, Aarno Ruusuvuori, Raili and Reima Pietilä, Timo and Tuomo Suomolainen, Pekka Pitkänen, Käpy and Simo Paavilainen, Kristian Gullichsen, Juha Leiviskä, Matti Sanaksenaho in the exhibition.