tapiola uimahallia (two weeks ago)

I think I already mentioned the swimming pool and its current degraded situation. Not sure what that's about. Clearly in its heyday it was the pride and joy of the town.

What amazed me about it, is I thought it was an 80s building. Nope. 

tapiola (two weeks ago) cont again

People at the lake which the Tapiola Park hotel looks out over. 

Here are a few vintage pics of the lake from the Raportti book.

tapiola (two weeks ago) cont

 These horses are ubiquitous in Tapiola and in fact... 

Here they are in a picture from Heiki von Hertz's Raportti, a book published in 1984 but the picture I think is much older, though unfortunately it's undated. 

Yes I bought this LP. of course I did. 

I would have liked this plate but it was very expensive and what would I do with it? 

All of this fun is happening at Heikintori, Finland's first shopping centre I gather, but sadly even I, who like to avoid all evidence of my own eyes whenever I can, have to admit it's seen better days. But maybe it'll see even better days one day - ? Anyway, it's not exactly buzzing these days, though it has decent op shops and some restaurants. That the escalator doesn't go upstairs anymore is kind of... telling. 

I actually didn't think there was anything upstairs, but there is. I'll tell you how I found out - I really wanted to experience this glass walled staircase at the adjoining car park:

So I did, and it was kind of a downer but an interesting downer. 

The car park: there were little kids running around so I didn't want to spend time there. 

So, this gives you entree into the upstairs. 

And then when you come down the stairs, there's this restaurant and someone noisily banging their spoon on their bowl as they scoop up the last bits of whatever they're eating.

Elsewhere in the shopping complex i.e. I'm not 100% certain whether this is Heikintori or something else, there was this which filled me with not rage but weary irritation when I first saw it because I thought it was pro-meat. But no. It's a meat substitute business although I can't really tell in what way, if any, it's interfacing with the public here. 

Back in what used to be, and probably isn't anymore, the main city centre area:

This building, designed by Aarne Ervi, is iconic locally and clearly had a huge impact worldwide when it was erected. I actually thought it was empty now but late at night I noticed quite a few levels had lights on, so... whatever that tells us. 

Here it is in a Readers Digest article on Tapiola from February 1966. 

And here it is in a weird facsimile version with other mini-sized Tapiola buildings. 

It gets to watch over this little version of itself every day. 

tapiola (two weeks ago) megamix

This is my last full day in Finland, this time around, and I think I have kind of dropped the ball in terms of tallying my activities the last couple of days so... get ready for a picture dump... I'll split it into two. Or maybe three posts, or four, just so I don't end up with such a huge post it won't load or something.

So this is Tapiola on a Sunday evening, it's remarkable how much of the original town still exists even if things are basically shut up and probably falling apart (while it's also clearly a lived in city as well). I think this building below was the information centre or something. 

Below - the corridor of my hotel. I bet if I made a joke about The Shining I'd only be about the ten thousandth person to do so. Forgot my tricycle! 

View from my room (this was before I noticed that there was a door to the balcony...)

So that building out there is the swimming pool, it's completely closed up and empty. 

This statue, by the way, is meant to be like this. 

'Häikäistynyt' means 'dazzled'. 

I think a keskustorni is a town square. 

More soon