Hvitträsk

 

Last Saturday I combined culture and old friends by going to the annual Hvitträsk Christmas Market with former guides of said museum. 

In 1999, when I came home from a mission in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States, I got a summer job as a guide in Hvitträsk Museum. The museum is a beautiful place in Kirkkonummi, not far from where I grew up. I continued with this summer job for several years. During that time I got to know many other young people, many of them students of languages or Art History, who also guided people in this fabulous place, sold items in the museum shop and sold tickets at the counter. We had busy times and quiet times when we could chat. Many of us traveled to Hvitträsk from Helsinki by train. We were a talkative bunch, as guides often are. 

This August I contacted some of my friends from that time to invite them to my 50-year birthday. A couple of months later I had lunch with one of them and she suggested that we could go to the Christmas Market that is every year organized in Hvitträsk. We'd get to see our old boss, Pepita Ehrnrooth-Jokinen who has since retired and moved closer to the house that she did her life's work in. We could also get together a couple other former guides and chat. So in the end, on Saturday, four of us ventured into the awful weather for some Christmas jollity... (It was rainy and cold.)

Painting of Eliel Saarinen in his library

  Hvitträsk is the home of Finnish Architect Eliel Saarinen. He and his two architect friends, Herman Gesellius and Armas Lindgren, designed the place to be their home and studio in the beginning of the 20th Century, at the time when Nattional Romanticism was going strong and artists, composers and architects were constructing what became the Finnish Identity. (Writers did too, but they were a little earlier.) Many of these artists moved to the countryside not far from Helsinki - like Jean Sibelius to Ainola. The three architects decided to move to the lake Vitträsk. Each built their own home - two of them were linked with a large studio where they worked. 

 

Dining room with a famous stained glass work

 
Everything didn't go smoothly. Eliel Saarinen was married and so was Armas Lindgren, but Herman Gesellius was not. He was planning to move in with his talented textile artist sister, Loja. Somehow young feelings were tangled and Herman Gesellius fell in love with Matilda Saarinen, Eliel's wife, while Eliel fell in love with Loja Gesellius. This could have been the end of Hvitträsk but it wasn't. Herman married divorced Matilda and Eliel married Loja and they all lived together happily. Who didn't was Armas Lindgren - in the aftermath he moved out of Hvitträsk and the architectural trio, and Eliel and Herman were left to work between the two. Gesellius moved to the larger North Wing from the smaller building on the other side of the yard. The stained glass work in the dining room window, with its sketch in the children's playroom, stayed to remind everyone of what happened. In the glass work, Eliel and Herman are busy trying to play to Matilda, like troubadours of old. 

Living room or "great hall". 

 Unfortunately the North Wing burned many years ago. Eliel Saarinen's son, Eero, designed a smaller building in its stead, and it has been used for meetings and small hotels through the years. The building on the other side of the yard has been a restaurant and a café, but currently stands empty. Eliel Saarinen's home, though, is a beautiful museum, restored to its original glory. Every visitor must be awed by the national romantic beauty.  

Play room for Eliel's and Loja's kids

 I visited Hvitträsk first time as a child and I still remember how my brother and I ran around exploring. There are many nooks and crannies and several sets of stairs (some not open currently.) This has got to be one of my favorite buildings in the world, even as an adult. The Christmas  Market filled the basement and the studio and spread out into the yard, but most of the museum was open to visitors. It all felt so familiar and so beautiful at the same time. 

The lovely Orchid Room

 One more thing: Eliel eventually moved to the United States where he was one of the founders of Cranbrook Academy of Arts in Michigan. His daughter Pipsan became an interior decorator and textile artist like her mother, and Eero Saarinen became and architect like his father. You might recognize Eero by name. He designed the TWA terminal at the New York Kennedy Airport (now a hotel), the Dulles Airport in Washington and the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis, plus other buildings - he's one of Americas great architects. But born in Finland, you know.