"Dangerous liaisons. Preserving post-war modernism in city centers".
Conference,15-17 February 2001, Helsinki, Finland

Case Makkara- sausage case

[See photos]

Riitta Salastie, Architect, Helsinki City Planning Department

The hot potato of the DANGEROUS LIAISONS Conference, the Makkara (Sausage) was built in 1960 and designed by the talented Finnish architect Viljo Revell - with Alvar Aalto one of the leading architectural figures in the post war Finland. The CITY CENTRE - - as the building was called, was one of the first large scale urban renewal projects in Helsinki in the beginning of the 1960’s. It replaced the SKOHA building in the crossing of the Kaivo- and Keskuskatu streets, a building if to be honest did not excel among the architectural master pieces of its time. The question of quality is thus not quite so simple as those many populist articles that have popped up after the conference make us believe. In other words, that all historic architecture were good architecture per se and all modern architecture bad by its definition.

The problem of Makkara was maybe not so much in the quality of the architecture itself than in its relationship with the historic urban tissue, that it replaced and destroyed in a very sensitive spot in Helsinki - just in front of Eliel Saarinen’s Main Railway Station. Originally the project that included a large number of offices, shops, cafes and parking facilities was intended to be even more gigantic and meant to encompass the whole urban macro block.

In its building time Makkara promoted everything that was considered modern and progressive in Finland. The parking facilities itself told of the triumph of the private cars. The most prominent architectural feature was the large reinforced concrete rounded projection in the third floor - the driving ramp to the parking facilities behind. This projection also gave the building its nick name ”Makkaratalo”, ”SAUSAGE building” (Makkara = after the post war period one of the most popular Finnish “fast food”).

Since its building Makkara stands as an icon or an landmark of that kind of dangerous liaisons, that are typical and almost synonymous with the International Style in different places around the world. Its bad reputation in Finland can compete only in scale with its sister building in Vaasa, also designed by the same architect, Viljo Revell. When I began to study architecture in the beginning of the 1970s, Makkara was like a swearword. It has never been popular among the public, but it is used and it is functional.

I still think, as Jukka Jokilehto put it in his comment on the matter, that there is something to learn from this example. Although even now much hated, Makkara was a brave attempt to build for a new era and tells of the desire of the times. The solution should take into account the quality of the present design (and there is some) and not fall short of it producing another awful kitsch. It can also be questioned what is the identity of the building without Makkara - an architectural hybrid as we so often see around us today? Nor can the answer be found in the historicism as (also) has been proposed.

The key is not in the architecture but how to integrate the building (the proposed building programme almost doubles the present volume!) into the existing contemporary urban context: as to make best of its historic stratigraphy in the very heart of the lively urbanity of the town. I also believe like Esa Laaksonen, the head of the Alvar Aalto Foundation, in his article in the Helsingin Sanomat, that preserving the Makkara and the Keskuskatu pedestrian plans do not necessarily fight each other. It is rather the quality of the total urban concept, that is important and that we have to work with. This kind of approach can also bring potential answers to the place as a whole rather than focusing on style or authenticity alone.