Helsinki

The Helsinki Olympic Stadium , located in the Töölö district about 2 kilometres from the center of the Finnish capital Helsinki, is... the largest stadium in the country, nowadays mainly used for hosting sports events and big concerts. The stadium is best known for being the center of activities in the 1952 Summer Olympics. During those games, it hosted athletics, equestrian show jumping, and the football finals. It was built however to host the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were moved from Tokyo to Helsinki before being cancelled due to World War II. The stadium was also the venue for the first World Athletics Championships in 1983 as well as for the 2005 World Championships in Athletics. It hosted both the 1971 European Athletics Championships and the European Athletics Championships in 1994. It will once again be the venue for the championships in 2012. It is also the home stadium of the Finland national football team. Construction of the Olympic Stadium began in 1934 and it was completed in 1938. The Olympic was designed in functionalistic style by the architects Yrjö Lindegren and Toivo Jäntti.
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Finlandia Hall is a concert hall with a congress wing in Helsinki, Finland, by Töölönlahti bay. The building was designed by Alvar... Aalto. The work began in 1967 and was completed in 1971. Alvar Aalto was commissioned by the city of Helsinki to design a concert and congress building, the first constructed part of a great central city plan, which Aalto first presented in 1961, and which included a series of cultural buildings aligned along the Töölönlahti bay which penetrates the city centre. The earliest sketches show features of what were to be the main features of the final design. The principal set of blueprints for the concert hall are dated 10 May 1967. None of the other buildings in the grand scheme were ever completed. The main features of the building's exterior are the great horizontal mass of the building proper and the towering auditorium that rises above it. The main external wall material is Carrara marble and with copper roofs, which have acquired a green patina, and teak window frames. The marble continues in the interior, and is supplemented by details in hardwoods, and ceramic.
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Parliament House is the seat of the Parliament of Finland. It is located in the Finnish capital of Helsinki, in the district of... Töölö. In 1923 a competition was held to choose a site for a new Parliament House. Arkadianmäki, a hill beside what is now Mannerheimintie, was chosen as the best site. The architectural competition which was held in 1924 was won by the firm of Borg–Sirén–Åberg with a proposal called Oratoribus . Johan Sigfrid Sirén , who was mainly responsible for preparing the proposal, was given the task of designing Parliament House. The building was constructed 1926–1931 and was officially inaugurated on March 7, 1931. Ever since then, and especially during the Winter War and Continuation War, it has been the scene of many key moments in the nation's political life. Sirén designed Parliament House in an architectural style combining Neoclassicism with early twentieth century modernism. Sirén's combination of simplified columns and balusters with simplified planar geometry bears comparison to similar explorations by Erik Gunnar Asplund and Jože Plečnik.
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The Sibelius Monument is dedicated to the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius . The monument is located at the Sibelius Park in the district of... Töölö in Helsinki, the capital city of Finland. The monument was designed by Eila Hiltunen and unveiled on September 7, 1967. Originally it sparked a lively debate about the merits and flaws of abstract art, for which reason an effigy of Sibelius was included in the work. It consists of series of more than 600 hollow steel pipes welded together in a wave-like pattern. The purpose of the artist was to capture the essence of the music of Sibelius. The monument weighs 24 tonnes and measures 8.5 × 10.5 × 6.5 metres. A smaller version of the monument is located at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. A work with a similar concept, also designed by Hiltunen, is located at the grounds of the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
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Seurasaari is an island and a district in Helsinki, Finland, known mostly as the location of the Seurasaari Open-Air Museum, which consists of old,... mainly wooden buildings transplanted from elsewhere in Finland and placed in the dense forest landscape of the island. Every summer, many Helsinkians come to Seurasaari to enjoy the rural, peaceful outdoor atmosphere. Despite the visitors, the island has a variety of wildlife, especially birds, but also red squirrels and hares. The height of the island's popularity is at Midsummer, when a huge bonfire is built on a small isle just off the island's coast, and ignited by a newly-wed couple. Thousands of people, both tourists and Helsinkians, watch the burning of the bonfire from both Seurasaari itself and from boats anchored near it. Seurasaari also includes one of only two nudist beaches in Helsinki and one of only three in the entire country. Unlike the other nudist beaches, the beach is segregated for men and women separately with no unisex nudist area.
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The National Museum of Finland presents Finnish history from the Stone Age to the present day, through objects and cultural history. The Finnish... National Romantic style building is located in central Helsinki and operates in collaboration with the National Board of Antiquities , an association related to the government's Ministry of Education. The permanent exhibitions of the National Museum are divided into six parts. The Treasure Troves presents the collections of coins, medals, orders and decorations, silver, jewellery and weapons. Prehistory of Finland is the largest permanent archeological exhibition in Finland. The Realm presents of the development of Finnish society and culture from the Middle Ages 12th century to the early 20th century, through the Swedish Kingdom Period to the Russian Empire Era. The "Land and Its People" presents Finnish folk culture in 18th–19th centuries, life in the countryside before the industrialisation. The 20th century exhibition presents independent Finland and its united and international culture.
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Finnish National Gallery is the largest art museum institution of Finland. It consists of the Ateneum art museum, the museum of contemporary art,... Kiasma, the Sinebrychoff Art Museum and the Central Art Archives. The organization's functions are supported by the conservation department, the administration and services department and Kehys, the art museum development department. The mission of the Finnish National Gallery is to further the cultural heritage of Finnish visual arts, to enforce the significance of visual culture in contemporary times, and to develop the art museum industry. They also maintain and develop Finland's largest collection of art and the knowledge and research archives of their field. The Sinebrychoff Art Museum has foreign paintings by painters such as;Giovanni Boccati,Giovanni Castiglione,Govaert Flinck,Rembrandt,Jan Cook,Goyen,Carl Wilhelm de Hamilton,Lucas Cranach the Elder,Jurgen Ovens,Frans Wouters,Hieronymous Francken the Second,Joshua Reynolds,Antoine Watteau,Francois Boucher,Carl Von Breda,Alexander Roslin,and Jacob Bjorck.It has an appreciable collection of Swedish miniatures.
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The Finnish Museum of Natural History , established in 1988, is a research institution under the University of Helsinki in Finland. It is responsible... for the national botanical, zoological, geological and paleontological collections consisting of samples from around the world. The collections serve scientific, public informational and educational purposes. Performs age determination of samples with physical methods . Maintains a collection of 8 million animal specimens; performs research mainly on systematics, taxonomy, and zoogeography. Maintains collections of rock and ore samples , meteorites , and fossils . Maintains the national herbarium of Finland containing 3,1 million specimens of plants and fungi. Maintains a collection of living plants for education and research; is responsible for international seed exchange and public education on plants.
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Anna Katriina Outinen is a Finnish actress who has often played leading female roles in Aki Kaurismäki's films. Outinen was born in Helsinki.... Having studied under Jouko Turkka during his "reign" of drama studies in Finland, she nevertheless has never been associated with the "turkkalaisuus" school of acting methodology. Her breakthrough role was as a tough girl in the generational classic youth film Täältä tullaan elämä by Tapio Suominen. In 1984, she appeared in Aikalainen. Besides a strong domestic reputation gained through a widely varied list of roles in theater and television drama, film director Aki Kaurismäki's films have brought Outinen international attention and even adulation, particularly in Germany and France. Her first work together with Kaurismäki was Shadows in Paradise in 1986. At the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, Outinen won the award for Best Actress for the Kaurismäki film The Man Without a Past. Outinen also works as a Professor in Acting at the Theatre Academy Helsinki.
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Teemu Ilmari Selänne nicknamed "The Finnish Flash" is a Finnish professional ice hockey winger, an alternate captain of the Anaheim Ducks of... the National Hockey League . An offensive player known for his skill and speed, Selänne has led the NHL in goal-scoring three times and has been named to the league's First All-Star Team on two occasions. He has won the Stanley Cup once with the Ducks in 2007. Selänne started his hockey career on the youth team, EPS . While playing junior with Finnish club Jokerit, Selänne was selected 10th overall in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft by the Winnipeg Jets. Continuing to play with Jokerit following his draft, he played two-and-a-half seasons in Finland's premier league, the SM-liiga. In 1992–93, he joined the Jets and set NHL rookie records with 76 goals and 132 points, en route to the Calder Memorial Trophy. After three-and-a-half seasons with the Jets, he was traded to the Mighty Ducks and formed a high-scoring duo with winger Paul Kariya on the team's top line.
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Esa-Pekka Salonen ; born June 30, 1958 in Helsinki is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic... Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Salonen, born in Helsinki, Finland, studied horn and composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, as well as conducting with Jorma Panula. His conducting classmates included Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Osmo Vänskä. Another classmate on the composition side was the composer Magnus Lindberg and together they formed the new-music appreciation group Korvat auki and the experimental ensemble Toimii . Later, Salonen studied with the composers Franco Donatoni, Niccolò Castiglioni and Einojuhani Rautavaara. His first experience with conducting came in 1979 with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, though he still thought of himself principally as a composer; in fact, Salonen has said that the primary reason he took up conducting was to ensure that someone would conduct his own compositions.
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Paavo Allan Engelbert Berglund was a Finnish conductor. Born in Helsinki, Berglund studied the violin as a child, and played an instrument made by... his grandfather. By age 15, he had decided on music as his career, and by 18 was playing in restaurants. He joined the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1949, unique among the instrumentalists in being accommodated for seating to account for the fact that he was left-handed. Berglund's conducting career began in 1949, when he founded his own chamber orchestra. In 1953, Berglund co-founded the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra . In 1956, he was appointed Associate Conductor of the Finnish RSO, and served as chief conductor of the Finnish RSO from 1962 to 1972. Berglund became music director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in 1975 and held the post for 4 seasons. Berglund attained notoriety as a conducting "dictator" due to his ruthless rehearsals and dedication to musical perfection.
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Magnus Lindberg is a Finnish composer and pianist. He is currently the composer-in-residence at the New York Philharmonic. Lindberg studied at the... Sibelius Academy in Helsinki under Einojuhani Rautavaara and Paavo Heininen, beginning with piano. He attended summer courses in Siena and Darmstadt . After graduating in 1981, he travelled widely in Europe, attending private studies with Vinko Globokar and Gérard Grisey in Paris, and observing Japanese drumming and punk rock in Berlin. Lindberg's juvenilia include the large orchestral work Donor, composed at age 16. Quintetto dell’Estate is generally held to be Lindberg's first opus. His first piece performed by a professional orchestra was Sculpture II in 1982, the second part of a trilogy whose first and third sections were long unwritten. His first great success came with "Action-Situation-Signification" , the first work in which he explored musique concrète. This piece was written for and premiered by the new-music ensemble Toimii , which Lindberg founded during the summer of 1980.
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George Gaynes is a Finnish-born American actor of stage, screen and television. Gaynes' most recognized role in cinema was arguably that of... Commandant Eric Lassard in the Police Academy series. To television fans, he is perhaps best known as the curmudgeonly Henry Warnimont on the NBC series Punky Brewster; as high-powered theatrical producer Arthur Feldman on The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, in which Gaynes' real-life wife, Allyn Ann McLerie, co-starred as his love interest; and as Frank Smith, the mob boss brought down by Luke Spencer on the soap opera General Hospital. Gaynes was born in Helsinki, Finland, the son of Iya Grigorievna De Gay , an artist, and Gerrit Jongejans, a Dutch businessman. His uncle was actor Gregory Gaye. A United States citizen for most of his life, Gaynes rapidly built a reputation as a Broadway musical comedy performer in the 1940s and 1950s . He had a career on the opera stages of Italy and France before World War II and in the US after the war.
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Oskar Merikanto was a Finnish musician and composer. He was born to Swedish-speaking parents in Helsinki. His father, originally Frank Mattsson,... changed the family name to sound more Finnish. He was notable for his variety of talents – he gave concerts all around Finland, performing on the piano and organ, conducting orchestras, and composing original music. Some of his most beloved compositions are Där björkarna susa, and the waltz Kesäillan valssi . He died in Hausjärvi-Oitti. His son Aarre Merikanto is one of the most notable Finnish composers. He wrote vocal music in German, Swedish and Finnish.
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Anna Katriina Outinen is a Finnish actress who has often played leading female roles in Aki Kaurismäki's films. Outinen was born in Helsinki.... Having studied under Jouko Turkka during his "reign" of drama studies in Finland, she nevertheless has never been associated with the "turkkalaisuus" school of acting methodology. Her breakthrough role was as a tough girl in the generational classic youth film Täältä tullaan elämä by Tapio Suominen. In 1984, she appeared in Aikalainen. Besides a strong domestic reputation gained through a widely varied list of roles in theater and television drama, film director Aki Kaurismäki's films have brought Outinen international attention and even adulation, particularly in Germany and France. Her first work together with Kaurismäki was Shadows in Paradise in 1986. At the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, Outinen won the award for Best Actress for the Kaurismäki film The Man Without a Past. Outinen also works as a Professor in Acting at the Theatre Academy Helsinki.
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Teemu Ilmari Selänne nicknamed "The Finnish Flash" is a Finnish professional ice hockey winger, an alternate captain of the Anaheim Ducks of... the National Hockey League . An offensive player known for his skill and speed, Selänne has led the NHL in goal-scoring three times and has been named to the league's First All-Star Team on two occasions. He has won the Stanley Cup once with the Ducks in 2007. Selänne started his hockey career on the youth team, EPS . While playing junior with Finnish club Jokerit, Selänne was selected 10th overall in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft by the Winnipeg Jets. Continuing to play with Jokerit following his draft, he played two-and-a-half seasons in Finland's premier league, the SM-liiga. In 1992–93, he joined the Jets and set NHL rookie records with 76 goals and 132 points, en route to the Calder Memorial Trophy. After three-and-a-half seasons with the Jets, he was traded to the Mighty Ducks and formed a high-scoring duo with winger Paul Kariya on the team's top line.
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Esa-Pekka Salonen ; born June 30, 1958 in Helsinki is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic... Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Salonen, born in Helsinki, Finland, studied horn and composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, as well as conducting with Jorma Panula. His conducting classmates included Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Osmo Vänskä. Another classmate on the composition side was the composer Magnus Lindberg and together they formed the new-music appreciation group Korvat auki and the experimental ensemble Toimii . Later, Salonen studied with the composers Franco Donatoni, Niccolò Castiglioni and Einojuhani Rautavaara. His first experience with conducting came in 1979 with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, though he still thought of himself principally as a composer; in fact, Salonen has said that the primary reason he took up conducting was to ensure that someone would conduct his own compositions.
more

Magnus Lindberg is a Finnish composer and pianist. He is currently the composer-in-residence at the New York Philharmonic. Lindberg studied at the... Sibelius Academy in Helsinki under Einojuhani Rautavaara and Paavo Heininen, beginning with piano. He attended summer courses in Siena and Darmstadt . After graduating in 1981, he travelled widely in Europe, attending private studies with Vinko Globokar and Gérard Grisey in Paris, and observing Japanese drumming and punk rock in Berlin. Lindberg's juvenilia include the large orchestral work Donor, composed at age 16. Quintetto dell’Estate is generally held to be Lindberg's first opus. His first piece performed by a professional orchestra was Sculpture II in 1982, the second part of a trilogy whose first and third sections were long unwritten. His first great success came with "Action-Situation-Signification" , the first work in which he explored musique concrète. This piece was written for and premiered by the new-music ensemble Toimii , which Lindberg founded during the summer of 1980.
more

George Gaynes is a Finnish-born American actor of stage, screen and television. Gaynes' most recognized role in cinema was arguably that of... Commandant Eric Lassard in the Police Academy series. To television fans, he is perhaps best known as the curmudgeonly Henry Warnimont on the NBC series Punky Brewster; as high-powered theatrical producer Arthur Feldman on The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, in which Gaynes' real-life wife, Allyn Ann McLerie, co-starred as his love interest; and as Frank Smith, the mob boss brought down by Luke Spencer on the soap opera General Hospital. Gaynes was born in Helsinki, Finland, the son of Iya Grigorievna De Gay , an artist, and Gerrit Jongejans, a Dutch businessman. His uncle was actor Gregory Gaye. A United States citizen for most of his life, Gaynes rapidly built a reputation as a Broadway musical comedy performer in the 1940s and 1950s . He had a career on the opera stages of Italy and France before World War II and in the US after the war.
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