birds on the lookout in hietaniemi graveyard

recently on bbc four there was a two part documentary called “magnetic north” in which jonathan meades travelled from northern france to finland.

whilst in finland he talks a bit about the local architecture:

contrasting that of alvar aalto (above) to the national romantic style of saarinen, sonck etc. (below)

aaltos buildings have always left me feeling cold - for me there is very little to enjoy about them (except when taking pictures at night time (1) (2)). they were, of course, a product of their time - reacting against what came before them. the national romantic style of a century ago came from a reaction too - part reactive, part proactive to their times.

the show is on youtube at the moment in multiple parts.

walking around sydhavnen last week in copenhagen i saw a little bit of dutch architectural/urban planning influence on the shape of the city. the dutch architect sjoerd soeters helped on the masterplan for the area. (here is the link on the website of arkitema architects who co-authored the masterplan)

this week oma were announced as the winners of the bryghusprojektet (the brewery site project) in the centre of copenhagen. lots of pictures available here

pictures of last weeks trip to copenhagen. uploading to flickr is ongoing!

i left ireland around the time enda kenny become leader of fine geal (the second largest political party) so i never really saw much of him on television. most of my irish news gathering comes from listening to the radio. i just saw this video of him on youtube talking about a policy that his party had (basically “if we get into power and we dont do all these things - i will resign”). something very odd about him. it has the feel of a comedy sketch.