Lutherinkatu 3, Helsinki
Tel. 09- 494 698
Trolley: 3B, 3T
Bus: 14, 14B, 18, 24, 39, 39A
Open: daily
Temppeliaukio church is the church of the Evangelical Lutheran Töölö parish near the center of Helsinki in Etu-Töölö. The building was completed in 1969. The rock-cut church was designed by Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen. The church has 750 seats. Thanks to its acoustic properties, the church is a popular venue for concerts.
The rocky area at the end of Fredrikinkatu was already reserved as
the site of the church in the first approved site plan of the Arkadia
area, or Etu-Töölö, in 1906. The name of the place Temppeliaukio and the
name of the street surrounding it on the west and north, Temppelikatu,
also date from that time. However, construction work was not started on
the site for a long time. Later, three architectural competitions were
organized for the design of the church, of which only the last one
awarded the first prize.
In 1931, the Helsinki church council
asked the city for a rocky plot of land named Temppeliaukio, where it
planned to build the main church of Etu-Töölö, which would be formed as
an independent parish in the future. In September 1932, an open
architectural competition was announced for the sketches of the church
building as well as the location of the church and the arrangement of
the entire block area caused by it. By the deadline of January 25, 1933,
57 proposals were submitted for the competition. The first prize was not
awarded at all, but two second prizes were. They went to the proposal of
architects Kai and Dag Englund and to the proposal of architect Lars
Björk. In both proposals, a traditional long church with a tower was
proposed to be built, as was the proposal of Aarne Hytönen and
Risto-Veikko Luukkonen, which came third, where the tower was replaced
by a high end wall. The result of the competition did not completely
satisfy the competition committee. The discussion continued in the
bodies of the city of Helsinki, parishes and the Finnish Architects'
Association.
In May 1936, a new open competition was announced,
which ended in September of the same year. By the deadline, 23 proposals
were submitted to the competition. The first prize was not awarded in
this competition either. Of the second prizes awarded, one went to
architect Martti Välikangas and the other to architects Aarne Ervi and
Toivo Paatela and their assistants. The runners-up, as well as Professor
J. S. Sirén's proposal, which came in third, were long churches, all of
which have a tower. In those that won the second prize, the tower is
detached from the church itself, in Sirén's proposal it is part of the
church hall building. Sirén's cathedral-type church, which ranked third,
best met the wishes of the parish representatives, so the proposal was
approved by the Church Council as the basis for the work. Excavation
began in November 1939, but the winter war stopped the work after only
three days. The war was followed by a long period of reconstruction in
Finland, when the construction of the church was not continued. The
social expectations and architectural goals and stylistic trends for the
parishes changed, so the church council decided in 1959 to give up
Sirén's expensive and outdated church plan in 1959.
The third
open architecture competition was announced to be held from 8 August
1960 to 15 January 1961. According to the competition program, the
proposal "should include the entire layout plan of Temppeliaukio,
including park areas and parking spaces, taking into account that as
much of the rocky area of the square as possible could be preserved". By
the deadline, the competition received 67 proposals. The competition
result was announced on April 19, 1961. The award committee unanimously
awarded the first prize to the proposal Kivikirkko. The architect
brothers Timo Suomalainen and Tuomo Suomalainen were revealed behind the
name tag. In their proposal, the rocky nature of the square has been
preserved by making the church out of the rock itself: the hall is sunk
into the middle of the rock and the parish facilities are placed on the
edges of the dome to accompany its shape.
The second prize went
to architect Eero Eerikäinen and architecture student Jukka Salokari for
the proposal Sanctitas. In this proposal, the square is dominated by a
tall church building. Award committee member Heikki Castrén said the
best aspects of the work when presenting the proposal for a modern
cathedral created with the most exciting methods of contemporary
architecture. The third place went to the proposal Seinät, which was
created by architect Ahti Korhonen and his assistants. According to
Castrén, this proposal was the stark contrast to the work that won the
second prize. Its architecture is monastically barren, and in it a rock
would remain a rock.
As the basis of the work, the award committee proposed the proposal
of Suomalainen veljesten, which was unanimously selected as the winner.
The award committee's statement on the Kivikirkko proposal, recorded in
the evaluation minutes, reads in its entirety as follows:
"Basically, the proposal follows a line that has appeared before when
competing for a church to be built on this site, but is still completely
original as a composition. By designing the parish premises as a low
structure that curves around the rock, the impression has been created
where the rock area in its entire extent forms an intact sacral area.
The overall solution has been sensitively adapted to the original shape
of the terrain, enhancing it. Public access is organized directly from
the street level; the church hall is also connected by a tunnel to the
parish facilities. The Finnish and Swedish congregations each form their
own entity. Their internal organization is in principle correctly
resolved, although sketchy in details. The basic outline of the proposal
offers an opportunity for its further development. For example, by
moving the church structure somewhat closer to the parish premises,
excavation could be reduced and the underground connection shortened.
The interior of the church is delicate both in its forms and its
lighting. However, the roof structure needs more detailed technical
investigation. The proposal offers an architecturally beautiful view
from all sides. The design of the bell tower is not at the level of the
rest of the plan."
At the beginning of the statement, the board
refers to the proposal of Pauli Blomstedt, who participated
unsuccessfully in the 1932–1933 competition. In both of P.E. Blomstedt's
and the Suomalainen brothers' plans, the rock has been given an absolute
main role, however in a completely different way: Blomstedt's with
maximum conservation of the rock and Suomalainen's with minimal
alteration of the rock. This becomes clear when you get to know the
completed church and Blomstedt's drawings kept in the Museum of Finnish
Architecture (especially a drawing of the main facade of the church -
the entrance page from the direction of Oksasenkatu and Sammonkatu and a
drawing of the location of the church in the rocky area). For Blomstedt,
the overall artistic structure is created from the contrast between the
rock and the building, while for the Suomalainen brothers, it is created
from the harmonious dialogue between the rock and the building masses
that are related to the forms of nature. The choice of a roof dome – an
ancient sacral space structure – as the roof of the hall in both
proposals causes the part of the arc of a circle to become the focus of
attention in both plans in the facade and section drawings. However, the
domes are completely different. Blomstedt's dome is a reduced,
completely opaque glass brick and an emphasized technical, pure contrast
to nature. It visually separates those in the hall from the rock and the
rest of the environment to their own peace. The Finns' dome aims to
connect the outside and inside space and thus offer those in the hall
space the opportunity to experience freedom in addition to the sense of
security created by the rock.
Rock mining starts from a
completely different basis in these proposals. Blomstedt places his
church on the square in a place where it can fit next to the rock with
as little excavation as possible. Suomalainen's brothers placed the
church in the center of the rock, which is advantageous in terms of
traffic and in the most hierarchically valuable place in the square.
Their basic idea was to make a church for Temppeliaukio out of the rock
itself.
Getting the church to Temppeliaukio in the cultural climate of the
1960s took nine years, including the competition period. The press
actively participated in the uproar around the project by writing about
the "anti-devil bunker", "million church" and "giant investment". The
church council had roughly the same number of opponents as supporters of
the project. The situation led to the decision to eliminate two-thirds
of the parish facilities according to the competition program. The size
and shape of the church hall itself remained somewhat unchanged.
Apart from the reduction of the space program, which came as a setback,
the changes were, according to the architects, mainly the natural
development of the plan. One of the most significant changes from an
architectural point of view became possible when the brothers had the
opportunity to present their idea, which had already arisen while doing
the competition work, to have the walls of the hall made of rock
surfaces instead of concrete. However, the brothers had abandoned this
idea during the competition phase, fearing the jury's reaction.
After the competition, experts from different fields were included in
the design group. Acoustician Mauri Parjo demanded box-like structures
on the underside of the roof dome. An aesthetically acceptable solution
was found when the brothers came up with designing a copper strip
cladding below the box structures. The acoustician wanted different
sized folding surfaces for the concrete walls of the hall. Conductor
Paavo Berglund had also told the brothers that acoustically good music
halls have vaults and other subjects that strongly shape the surface.
The brothers noticed that the idea of a rock wall excavated to a living
surface, which remained in their minds, would be by far the most natural
solution, both visually and acoustically. They presented their proposal
first to the acoustician and then to the building committee, which asked
for opinions from all the specialist designers. They were in favor and
the committee accepted the rock wall idea.
Construction of the
church began in February 1968 and it was inaugurated on September 28,
1969 under the name Taivallahti Church. In 1971, the name was officially
changed to Temppeliaukio church. The price of the church with its
furnishings came to about four million marks, which was more or less the
same as the price of a public school of the same size in Helsinki.
During the construction period, the church aroused conflicting feelings. A group of ten members of the Student Christian Association, led by Seppo Kjellberg, painted with white paint on the night of July 16 and 17, 1968, the "Biafra" texts that take a stand on rock and concrete castings in eleven places to remind us of the hunger problem in Africa. The case attracted great attention and made it to the front pages of the newspapers. It was noted that the student radicalism had now also taken believers with it. In January 1969, the Helsinki Court of Appeal sentenced the Biafra painters to fines. They were imposed on everyone, the smallest fine was 10 marks and the largest was 100 marks. They also had to pay the court costs of the city and the parish, 160 marks each. In the end, "an influential group of supporters, up to the bishops" collected the money needed for these fees, so the students did not have to pay them themselves. There is still one Biafra painting in the basement of the church.
You enter the space excavated in the bedrock without going up the
stairs directly from the street level. The free-form oval church hall is
bathed in daylight between the rock wall and the roof dome thanks to the
skylight area of variable width. In the window area, the dome is
supported by 180 radial beams of different lengths. Both the beams and
the supporting structure of the dome are reinforced concrete. The dome
is the only mathematical shape in the hall. The amount of light is
distributed to different parts of the hall according to their mutual
ranking. Thus, the skylight gives the most valuable venue, i.e. the
altar area, the most light compared to other parts of the hall,
emphasizing the work of art created by the rock crack, the cross and the
altar structures. The cladding surfaces of the dome and the gallery are
unpatinated copper: in the dome a slotted strip and in the galleries a
sheet bent into a pontoon panel. The floor is polished concrete, the
pulpit is reinforced concrete, as well as the base structures of the
gallery, which contain the scat and ventilation ducts.
The
interior colors designed by Finns are based on granite tones: red,
blue-red and gray. The crucifix, candlesticks and baptismal bowl were
forged by the artist Kauko Moisio. The textiles were designed by the
artist Tellervo Strömmer. The organ was made by Urkurakentamo Veikko
Virtanen. There are 43 voices and 3001 whistles. The layout of the organ
is the handiwork of the church's architects.
A total of 940
people can be in the hall at the same time. Some of the seats are placed
in the gallery, which also has three other important functions. The
loggia separates the hall from the hall and improves the acoustics by
dispersing the sound in the hall and absorbing it in the hall. In
addition, fresh air is blown in through the gallery. Exhaust air and
water coming from the rock are directed from the gap between the floor
and the rock to the ducts and pipes under the floor.
The parish
hall on the second floor of the edge building can accommodate 130
people. The church is often used as a concert hall due to its excellent
acoustics. There is a stepped podium for the choir, and a floor area is
reserved for the orchestra, which is usually a seating area with movable
chairs. In addition to concerts, Temppeliaukio's church has performed,
among other things, the semi-dramatic version of the opera The Last
Temptations in 2007. Temppeliaukio is also popular as a wedding church.
There are no bells in Temppeliaukio, but the chimes of the bells,
composed by professor Taneli Kuusisto, echo from the tape through the
loud speakers in the outer stone wall.
In 2018, 850,000 tourists visited the church in Temppeliaukio. Based
on the number of visitors, it is the most popular architectural
attraction in Finland and the third most popular tourist attraction in
Helsinki after Linnanmäki and Suomenlinna. In the summer, up to 10,000
people visit the church daily. A large part of the visitors are cruise
tourists and Asian group tourists. There has been an entrance fee of
three euros to the church in Temppeliaukio since 2017, and in 2018,
tourists brought 1,643,000 euros in ticket revenue to the church.
As the only destination from Finland, Temppeliaukio church (under
the name Taivallahti church) has been included in the Italian work
series I Cento Monumenti (Finnish World Sights, 1980). According to the
work, in the church of Temppeliaukio, reason and rationality created an
ideal place for those "mysterious phenomena that escape rational
explanations, where the most modern and the most primitive materials
together formed a new environment: a place for prayer was born that is
completely sheltered..., flooded with light, beautiful and thoroughly
'rational'".
Temppeliaukio's church was protected in 2004. In the
conservation presentation, the Museum Agency states, among other things:
"Temppeliaukio's church is a distinctive building, strongly associated
as a product of the Finnish spirit, which sits organically in a compact
square surrounded by red-brick workers' housing blocks. Granite, as the
church's most visible material, creates both a natural and permanent
impression, which the copper roof, upper glass band and concrete
entrance complementary".
The church was closed for renovation
from the end of 2010 to June 2011, and even after that the renovation
continued, although tourists were already allowed in during the summer.
The air conditioning, heating system and sound system were renewed in
the church. The wooden parts of the benches were renovated, and the
upholstery was replaced with fuchsia red fabric. The former vicar's
office room was turned into a bridal room, as the church is a popular
marriage church. In the bridal room, there is a wedding curtain designed
by Tellervo Strömmer, woven at the Wetterhoff home industry college.
Since October 2011, buses used by tourists have had to park 400
meters away on Eteläinen Rautatiekatu. Due to years of complaints,
parking is no longer allowed near the church.
In June 2017, there was news about the threat of a terrorist attack against the church in Temppeliaukio, which is why stout concrete pigs were brought in front of the church's entrance. In the spring and early summer of 2017, there were terrorist attacks in Europe, the perpetrators of which drove cars into large crowds. According to eyewitnesses, on June 18, 2017, a large-scale police operation was underway in the immediate vicinity of the Temppeliaukio church. According to the police, the operation was related to the arrest of a person suspected of a crime, but the matter was not commented on in more detail. Later, the police said that the suspect had not been reached. Although the terrorist threat against the church turned out to be baseless, it was decided that the concrete pigs would remain in place. The security practices of the church were also tightened so that bringing large bags and briefcases into the church was prohibited.