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Helsinki County Prison

Hotels in HelsinkiKatajanokkaPrisons in Finland
Katajanokka aerial photo (cropped)
Katajanokka aerial photo (cropped)

The Helsinki County Prison ("Helsingin lääninvankila" in Finnish) in the Helsinki city quarters of Katajanokka was a prison that operated from 1837 to 2002. It was established in 1837 by Tsar Nikolai I by the side of the Helsinki Crown Prison, which had operated from 1749. When completed, the prison had 12 cells, two rooms for guards and a worship room which is still extant and has been used for church weddings. The prison area was surrounded by a high red brick wall. The prison was extended in 1888 with the construction of a cell block in the form of a cross, in the classical Philadelphia model; the old part of the prison was converted to an administrative building. The prison continued functioning after Finnish independence. During the Second World War, the prison was directly hit by an air strike on 6 February 1944. One guard was killed, a fire started and five prisoners used the opportunity to escape. At the end of the war, some well known convicts from the War-responsibility trials in Finland were kept in the prison, including President Risto Ryti, Prime Minister Väinö Tanner,. The Estonian-born writer Hella Wuolijoki. was there for high treason during World War II. Another inmate of note was Martta Koskinen, a seamstress and communist spy convicted of high treason who was executed by a firing squad on September 29, 1943. She was the last woman executed in Finland. During its last years, Helsinki County Prison functioned as a remand prison, where arrested suspects were kept while awaiting trial. To reflect this, in 2001 the prison was renamed Helsinki Remand Prison. Some of the prisoners were also criminals that had failed to pay fines to which they had been sentenced. In 2002, prison operations ceased completely with the completion of the new Vantaa prison. The building was renovated within the constraints of being a protected landmark and was re-opened in 2007 as a hotel.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Helsinki County Prison (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Helsinki County Prison
Merikasarminkatu, Helsinki Katajanokka (Southern major district)

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Wikipedia: Helsinki County PrisonContinue reading on Wikipedia

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N 60.166647222222 ° E 24.969377777778 °
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Hotel Katajanokka

Merikasarminkatu 1a
00160 Helsinki, Katajanokka (Southern major district)
Finland
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call+3589686450

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hotelkatajanokka.fi

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Katajanokka aerial photo (cropped)
Katajanokka aerial photo (cropped)
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Guggenheim Helsinki Plan
Guggenheim Helsinki Plan

Guggenheim Helsinki Plan was an initiative to establish a Guggenheim museum in Helsinki, Finland. A proposal was introduced to the Helsinki City Council in 2011. After rejection of the initial plan in 2012, a new plan, introduced in 2013, was considered and finally rejected in 2016. Following the 2011 proposal of a plan by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for a museum next to South Harbour, Helsinki, a debate was waged among local political and culture activists. The project's construction costs were estimated at 130–140 million euros to be paid by the city of Helsinki and the Finnish State. Guggenheim's license fee for the first 20 years was estimated as 23.4 million euros. Running costs of 14.4 million euros per year would outstrip annual admission fees of only 4.5 million euros. A survey found that 75% of citizens in Helsinki, and 82% of citizens in Vantaa, opposed the project. The Helsinki City Council rejected the plan in 2012. In 2013, Finland's Parliamentary Ombudsman issued a report concluding that Finnish investor and art collector Carl Gustaf Ehrnrooth, a member of the Board of Directors of the Guggenheim Foundation, and Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén, director of the Helsinki City Art Museum and a chief exponent of the Guggenhiem plan, had conflicts of interest involving the plan and each other. In September 2013, the Guggenheim Foundation advanced a revised proposal that sought to address the concerns. Operating cost estimates were revised downwards, while revenues were forecast by the Foundation to increase. In 2014, the city board agreed to reserve a new site for a potential museum at Eteläsatama and authorized the Foundation to hold an international architecture competition to design the potential museum. The competition, which was organised by London-based specialists Malcolm Reading Consultants, drew a record 1,715 submissions, and six finalists were announced. In June 2015 the French-Japanese architecture firm Moreau Kusunoki Architectes was selected as the winner. In December 2016, the Helsinki city council rejected the plan.

Katajanokka Airport
Katajanokka Airport

The Katajanokka Airport (Finnish: Katajanokan lentosatama) was the first airport in Finland, located in the Katajanokka neighbourhood in Helsinki. It functioned as a seaplane base in the south-eastern shore of Katajanokka during the years 1924–1936. Its history ended when the Helsinki-Malmi Airport was inaugurated on 16 December 1936. Aero Oy began its flights from Katajanokka on 20 March 1924 at 15:40 with a Junkers F 13 D-335 aircraft. The crew consisted of a German pilot and a mechanic. The first Finnish pilot, Gunnar Lihr, began his flights during the summer of the same year. The routes of Aero went to Stockholm, Tallinn and Riga. From the very start, the company had two flights to Tallinn on every day of the week. Stockholm was not as popular as Tallinn, with six flights a week. The flight to Stockholm took three hours, but in the event of contrary winds, the flight time could be up to half an hour longer.With its partners, Aero could offer flights to Königsberg, from which passengers could continued to Berlin by train.Other companies also used the Katajanokka airport, and there were also sightseeing flights operated from there.During the summer, the planes had floats, and during the winter either skis or wheels were used for landing and taking off. During rasputitsa, i.e. when the ice was only being formed or it was melting away, the flights were not operated. This period could last for up to two months each spring and autumn.In 1928, there was an attempt to move the airport to Kellosaari, now part of Ruoholahti, but this venture was not successful, and Katajanokka remained the only airport in Helsinki.

Norrmén house
Norrmén house

The Norrmén house, also known as the Norrmén castle and palace, was a red brick residential house representing the neo-renaissance architecture, situated for 63 years in Katajanokka, Helsinki, Finland, opposite the Uspenski Cathedral. It was designed by architect Theodor Höijer for the chairman of the Helsinki city council, Alfred Norrmén, who ordered the building plans from Höijer in 1896. The four-floor building was constructed at a fast pace, and the building was already completed in 1897. The top floor of the building contained high-class large apartments, while the much smaller apartments on the bottom floor were mainly reserved for servants. Alfred Norrmén himself lived in the building until his death in 1942. The building also hosted the Eastern Emigrants Club and its restaurant until 1944, when it was discontinued. Later the building hosted the Allied Commission. The Norrmén house was dismantled in 1960. The Enso-Gutzeit (currently Stora Enso) main office, built from white marble and designed by Alvar Aalto, was built in its place. It was completed in 1962. The dismantling of the house has been criticised ever since the year of its dismantling, and many view Aalto's new building in its place as completely unfit for the façade of Katajanokka, and the dismantling of the Norrmén house as one of the greatest wrongdoings in the history of Helsinki. Some have even proposed that Aalto's building should be dismantled and a replica of the Norrmén house should be built in its place. However, the city of Helsinki, along with the National Board of Antiquities is strongly in favour of preserving the main office building. In the 2004 film Pelikaanimies, directed by Liisa Helminen, the Norrmén house has been digitally built back in its place.