more hvitträsk pictures here.

suddenly almost overnight the country has turned green. there are leaves where there weren’t leaves before.

ive been following the construction of the mt100 road project here in helsinki - a few times a week i take a bus that passed a big hole that in time will hold a tunnel. the tunnel is being built in segments to accommodate the need for regular traffic to still pass the very busy crossroads.

the pdf documents on the tiehallinto website give lots of information but they lack a context to them.

ive taken those pdfs and converted them to png format and added them to my server and you can view them here:
google maps: view map

google earth: click here and open the file in google earth. (the png files are a total of 2,6mb)

links:
mt100 project page in english / mt100 pictures
helsingin sanomat article (in finnish) about the ruskeasuo traffic changes. a motorcyclist was killed at the crossing on tuesday.

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.

the live helsinki transport map that i mentioned last year got discussed in the guardian today.

also, i just saw this swiss train locator: swisstrains.ch.

(oh and the dublin one! [via])

i finally got around to uploading my camera obscura pictures from last august onto flickr. (set here)

taking the principles of camera obscura (small lens which projects an external view into an internal space upside down) and a sauna (a private place for sweating out the stress and getting a re energising feeling) and a boat (something that floats easily enough) all combined to provide an absolutely magical experience. having a sauna in the middle of helsinki city, the wind causing the sauna to move in töölönlahti (a bay) - the light refecting off the sea, the images from outside projected onto the walls, the scenery. fantastic.

some images from the artist (heidi lunabba) when it was in strömsö are here.

heading home to ireland on saturday for ten days. been a tough winter.

a long planned tunnel underneath helsinki city centre looks unlikely now to be built because of a change of heart of one of the main parties in the helsinki city council. i wonder if audible gasps were heard from members of the other parties when the decision was announced yesterday.

the tunnel was due to cost about 500million euros and would have stretched from ruoholahti to the west of the city and go to just north of sörnäinen.

helsinki city planning department: central tunnel website (in finnish)
helsingin sanomat: proposed helsinki tunnel unlikely to be built (in english)
also an anti-tunnel site by activists: keskustatunneli.fi

at the same time there is some doubt about the metro extention westwards to espoo - rising costs (going from 430million euros to 800million euros). hopefully now that the central tunnel has been (most likely) cancelled resources can be put into the metro extension. (yle.fi story).

there was a story in helsingin sanomat a while back about the high rates of lone drivers in cars coming from espoo to helsinki.

a dog waiting in a shop door on iso roobertinkatu. its leash in its mouth, waiting to be taken for a walk.

anna emilia has launched her new site. go and look and then go “ooohh” and “aaah” cos its all so nice.