This last weekend Anna and I went to Tallinn, Estonia with a group of friends from our school. Tallinn is the capital of Estonia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a very old walled city with a great medieval character. Most of the walls are still intact. There are also a number of guard towers along the walls. Like many beautiful historic towns, it is pretty touristy, but there is plenty of Tallinn to go around. We also enjoyed a brewery that had a beer tap mounted at each table.



Tallirama



Tallinn by Night



Midget Door



More great stairs

My new (to me) faithful cruiser bike.

Today was our (I often abuse the first-person plural, but usually I am with Anna for these adventures, so give me the benefit of the doubt, at least I'm not referring to myself in the third person.) first big adventure into Helsinki from our school. It was supposed to be about 20-30 minutes, but our trip took more like two hours. We did get to see some of Helsinki's nicer suburbs and at least one urban thong. We also enjoyed some pretty cool pedestrian, bicycle, and car intersections. The first was this cool, tech bridge that spans the highway below. We saw a lot of folks enjoying the walk over and the view. There is great viewing platform at the center that juts out.

Later we found this cool tunnel/underpass. Again, its much more tech that necessary, but the extra effort and money spent give this small event a little something extra. It definitely has that international style feel that is generally lacking in Finland.



Espoo Pedestrian Bridge



The bridge is employs universal design principles to accomodate razor-scooter traffic as well.



Glass and steel boxes are not just for faceless corporations, everyone can enjoy them.



It's pretty cool how the rectangle on top is the same size and shape as the one on the bottom. It looks as if the box was on top and suddenly sunk below.



We finally made it to the Design Museum. There was a retrospective of a well-known Finnish ceramicist named Rut Bryk. Her work was very interesting and unique. She gets my award for best stage name by a woman artist.

July 3

We spent this afternoon studying the many buildings on our campus (Helsinki University of Technology, TKK) that were designed by Alvar Aalto. Aalto is probably the most well-known Finnish architect. He is a master of daylighting among many other talents. These are photos of the campus library. Aalto is also an alumnus of TKK. You can visit a great example of his work at the Mt. Angel Abby. He designed the library there. There is also a house nearby designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I think it might me the only one in Oregon.



Anna sketching the main entrance and facade.



Great light in the library.

Sunday in Helsinki

Yesterday we explored more of Helsinki. After a stroll down the Esplanade and a stop at the market, we went over to the Suomenlinna Island. It used to be a sea fortress, but now it has a very nice parkish atmosphere and lost of historic fabric to check out. We spent a good part of the afternoon doing watercolors.



Anna at the market getting fresh strawberries and sweet peas.



A view of the island.