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Early morning, 18th April 2009

The wakeup call from the concierge comes at 4:45 am local time. Aurelia has an exciting conversation in Finnish with the taxi driver. While we wait at the airport Aurelia tells us about the last part of the Finnish crime novel by Arto Paasilinna she’s been reading. It gets light very early. [Read more →]

Our last day in Turku was dedicated to a trip to the island Ruissalo. Peter took us to the archipelago near the city in Hannah’s Volvo. On the way we stopped at a wooden tower to enjoy the view and get an overview of the area. We saw the nearby city, industry, sports halls and the shipyard where the biggest ships in the world are built. Aurelia let her silk pieces be carried off the high tower by the wind. Afterwards she picked them all up again under the close scrutiny of Peter, who is a conservationist. [Read more →]

Early this beautiful sunny morning we take the bus 53 with Reino to go to Jan Erik’s Leaf House. With this house the artist fulfilled a lifelong dream of his. He’s been working on the project “Leaf House”, a house build with a ground plan in the shape of a leave, for 10 years now. The city of Turku gave him a plot of land in a corner of a park. They didn’t want to have such a strange building within their city limits. The building is almost completed now. [Read more →]

Turku is a city of around 160.000 and is situated on the west coast of southern Finland. Just off the coast is the second biggest archipelago in the world. The city is built on the banks of the river Aura, which used to be its main channel of access. Today there are numerous bridges across the river. Both sides of the canal are lined with the most important buildings of the city: theatre, university, churches, art academy, museums, shipyards, restaurants, cafes and the new library. For 600 years under Swedish rule Turku / Abo was the biggest and most important city in Finland. [Read more →]

Today the weather is gray and cold. It rained a little earlier on. In Austria we don’t even appreciate how nice the weather is, how beautiful the seasons are. Here people are still quite shaken by the long dark winter.

We have a long talk about our future cooperation with the Gallery Titanik and our plans in connection with cultural capital Turku 2011.
As in most places, artist in Turku have to struggle to finance their art and their international contacts. [Read more →]

In the cold foggy morning we explore the island Ruuhuolahti. We find an impressive symbiosis of industry, factory, office and residential buildings. Old industrial buildings are remodeled as cultural spaces, like the theater, photo museum, radio station, music rooms and cultural institutes such as the Institute Francais. The nearby harbor is in the process of being redesigned. [Read more →]

What a delicious Easter meal we get on Good Friday! Camilla and Raine serve us Karelian pie with the Finnish lentil soup. For desert we have the typical Easter sweets of rye flour and malt, baked for seven hours in little birch baskets in the oven: Mämmi. It is served with sugar and mild and tastes delicious. Afterwards we get some Russian sweets. [Read more →]

After breakfast and the work for our website we take a taxi from the hotel to KUMU, the Estonian art museum.

The building is tastefully integrated into the hilly area directly next to the presidential palace. It is laid out as a segment of a circle and impresses by its clarity and the choice of materials. [Read more →]

In the Baltic countries it is common to travel very comfortably by bus. Through the endless vastness along the Baltic Sea we travel past birch and pine forests, past wooden houses, stork nests and colorful roofs and finally reach Tallinn. There are many new buildings in the suburban areas, then a good mix of new and old. We get our first impression of the country during a conversation with our taxi driver Olev. [Read more →]

On April 6, 2009 we travel from Vilnius to Riga. We pass through moorlands, past wooden houses, through birch and pine forests and stop in the theater city Panevézys, where the famous director Juozas Miltinis used to work. Then we are stopped at the border between Lithuania and Latvia where we have to show our passports. [Read more →]