Kotka

Today is Thursday

We went to visit Kotka. 
 

We started off by visiting some of Finland's most famous architect's building, Alvar Aalto.
Whilst these may look like ordinary housing blocks they are nearly 100 years old.

This is one of his houses.
These residential buildings are in an area called Sunila, Aalto also designed the large pulp mill there and these residential buildings are for the workers.

The other thing that Aalto is famous for is his glass vase that was designed in 1937, it became known as the Savoy vase because it was designed for the Helsinki Savoy Restaurant.
Our host Anna-Maija has three of them in her cupboard.







Moving on, we passed some enormous piles of woodchips on the harbour, in good graffiti style someone had cut out camel shapes and stuck them to the top of the fence to fit in with the sand dune appearance.



 




The Kotka Church of St Nicholas.
This Church sits in a park surrounded by trees and flower beds. Built in the early 1800s. It is a very interesting church and similar in detail on the inside to the one we visited yesterday.



 
 















 





We moved on to the Maritime Museum. An amazing building on the waterfront. Designed by Architects Lahdelma & Mahlamäki

A close up of the external wall finish 


 







Inside the spaces are huge, allowing for full size boats and aircraft. 


 





A fantastic 'battleships' game which has now been added to Steven's 'projects' list.

Continuing on around Kotka we found the fire station was built in 1898. It is the oldest wooden fire station in Finland.

Across the road from the fire station is  The Church of Kotka. It is one of the few facebrick buildings in Finland.
It was built in 1898.


 










 







 












 






 







We then had a tour around a recent housing development, both Australia and England could learn from some of the modern designs here. As the famous man once said 'buildings should be designed for their time'. Unlike the modern architecture in England that attempts to replicate the past.

Our final destination for the day, apart from the shops, was the Imperial Fishing Lodge.
Built in 1888 by Alexander III of Russia to take advantage of the superb fishing on the Kymi River. Finland belonged to Russia in those days and wasn't handed back until 1917. The lodge is now a museum.

Pot Shards found in Anna-Maija's garden.
The area where they were found has now been reserved by the museum and nothing can be done to disturb the ground. These shards are 4,000 years old.