I was pushing a pram one of the later spring days here in Katajanokka near by our office. As we (our daughter in the pram having her afternoon nap) were strolling the neighbourhoods I started to photo and video some details. There was no plan recording was purely spontaneous.

The details I chose were not the most obvious ones. They are mostly temporary, changing and even vanishing depending on our actions, light condition etc.

Katajanokka, or Skatta locally, has many sides, but usually tourists are brought here to see only the particular one. Interesting detail happened just the other day weeks after we had our stroll. I was having a cup of coffee and reading couple of pages of Jan Gehl´s book Life Between Buildings - Using Public Space (English translation 1987) here in our office. As I was gazing the lines I bumped into familiar name of Katajanokka. This sudden encounter with Jan Gehl through the medium of book created there and then in that very spot he was talking about a strange wormhole sort of moment. I have read good books, but never had this kind of reach out before, like an invisible hand touching your shoulder all of a sudden.

Gehl mentions Katjanokka as an example of a new interesting communal oriented architecture design quarter in Helsinki. I don’t know what Jan Gehl means by new. Tourists are usually brought to Katajanokka to see the art nouveau buildings (jugend in Finland). Supposedly Gehl is referring to the smaller and less known part of Katajanokka, which was build up during the 80’s.

Ari Björn
Creative Director, CEO
Art & Process

 

Detail 10 from Art & Process on Vimeo.