architecture walking tour helsinki

Helsinki Architecture Tours: Walking Guide

Helsinki Walking Tours, Finnish Building Guides, Architectural Walks Finland, Architects Visits

Helsinki Architecture Tours

Architecture Guides Finland – Exclusive City Walks tailor made for groups visiting Finland

post updated 2 June 2023

Book your city guide on isabelle(at)e-architect.com

Helsinki Architecture Tour: Exclusive Guided Walks

e-architect have architectural tour guides in most of the key cities across Europe.

Our Helsinki Architecture guided tours are all tailored to suit each booking we do not allow for bookings to be joined. Our guided tours in Helsinki are all exclusive to each client.

Should you be planning an office trip, a conference, or university trip to the Finnish capital city please contact us and we would be happy to take your booking.

Helsinki Architecture Walking Tours

Helsinki Introduction

Helsinki is the capital of Finland and is located in the south of the country, though close to the Arctic Circle! Famous architects with buildings in the city include Alvar Aalto and more recently Steven Holl Architects – see our Helsinki Architecture News page.

Notable buildings include Aalto House, Finlandia Hall, the Finnish Parliament Helsinki University of Technology in Otaniemi, Nokia Headquarters, Station Building, Cathedral Building, Olympic Stadium Building and Studio Aalto. These buildings are all possible to visit on our Helsinki Architecture Tours .

Other key Finnish Architects with works built in the city include JKMM Architects, Ville Hara and ALA Architects. You can use the city as a base to go further afield and discover more Finnish Architecture include classic Alvar Aalto works.

Helsinki Walking Tours

Helsinki Architectural Tours typically focus on contemporary buildings in the Finnish capital but roups can also be shown major older buildings. The Helsinki Architecture Tour can take your group around the most significant architecture or it can cater to your group’s specific architectural interests.

We can provide information on programme, geographical areas and building types up to a year ahead of your tour. For example a group of architects interested in innovative Helsinki office buildings could be provided with information allowing a tour programme to be agreed prior to their visit to Finland.

Helsinki Architectural Walking Tours

Contact e-architect to arrange your Finnish architectural tour: isabelle(at)e-architect.com / mob. +44 (0)7952 149814

Architecture Tours

e-architect organise architecture walking tours in other Nordic country cities such as Copenhagen (Denmark), Stockholm (Sweden) and Oslo (Norway). We also offer city walks in Northern European cities such as Berlin, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.

Architecture Walking Tours

Key Buildings in the Capital of Finland

Helsinki Architecture Designs – chronological list

Helsinki Architect – design firm listings

Kiasma, National Finnish Modern Art Gallery building design by Steven Holl Architects, USA Helsinki Art Gallery

Tropaion Helsinki by ALA Architects Tropaion Helsinki

Helsinki Architect

Recent Finnish Buildings

Viikki Church by JKMM Architects Viikki Church Building

University of Helsinki City Campus Library by Anttinen Oiva arkkitehdit Oy – aoa University of Helsinki City Campus Library

Photographs for the Helsinki Building Tours – Finnish Architecture Guides by e-architect for pre-booked visiting groups page are welcome

Helsinki: Architecture Walking Tour with Expert

• Sightseeing
• Architecture site

Helsinki is a gem for architecture enthusiasts. It is difficult to find another urban area that houses such a wide range of architectural styles. Neoclassical, gothic revival, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Nordic classicism, modernism, functionalism, and contemporary styles all coexist in the city center. Different historical periods have definitely left their mark on Helsinki. Join this architecture tour led by an expert guide to marvel at the architectural wonders that Helsinki has to offer. See the Senate Square, National Library of Finland, Central Railway Station, the new public library Oodi, JugendHall, Pohjola Insurance Building, Academic Bookstore, and more. Admire the great works of world-renowned architects, such as Engel, Saarinen and Aalto.

Type of tour

Destination

Helsinki Region

Type of experience

Best time to visit

Nearby stations

• Port Of Helsinki
• Helsinki Airport

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Architecture Tour of Helsinki

Helsinki is a gem for architecture enthusiasts. It is impossible to find another urban space that houses a wide range of architectural styles like Helsinki. Neoclassical, Gothic Revival, Renaissance Revival, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Nordic Classicism, Functionalism, Modernism, and contemporary styles in one compact city centre. In addition to its rich architectural history and variety, Helsinki was chosen as the World Design Capital in 2012 and was awarded with City of Design status by UNESCO in 2014. All these features coupled with the importance given to design elevated Helsinki into being a major city of architecture.

Just like any other European capital, different historical periods left their marks on Helsinki; however, it is easy to miss the great works of world-renowned architects in ordinary city tours as there are layers and layers of architecture in each corner of the white city of the North. The Finnish capital hosts spectacular buildings by Engel, Saarinen, Sonck, Siren, Aalto, Revell and more. You can now join me in an inspiring architecture tour with a small group to visit and enjoy the architectural wonders this pocket-sized metropolis offers.

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Opening hours

Architecture Walking Tour: Modern Helsinki

Location: Muualla

A new architecture for a new world. This tour considers the aesthetics, materials, and social conditions that shaped the development of modern architecture in Helsinki, from the 1930s to 2018. The tour includes office buildings, department stores, educational and public buildings, such as the Palace Hotel, the Helsinki University Library (Kaisa), Lasipalatsi, Sokos, and Oodi Central Library. 

Architecture walking tours series is written and hosted by Gayle McKeen. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago and has taught at universities in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

Thursday 20 July, 2023 | 1–3 pm Language: English | Participation: 10/5/0 € 

Thursday 27 July, 2023 | 1–3 pm Language: English | Participation: 10/5/0 € 

Thursday 10 August, 2023 | 5–7 pm  Language: English | Participation: 10/5/0 € 

Thursday 24 August, 2023 | 5–7 pm Language: English | Participation: 10/5/0 € 

Please note that the Museum Card cannot be used to pay for the walking tour.

Participation

A total of 25 participants will be admitted to one architecture walking tour. Places are filled in the order of arrival. The tour fee is collected at the customer service point of Museum of Finnish Architecture in advance (15 minutes before the start of the tour). Please arrive in time before the start time of the tour – the tour starts at even hours.

Accessibility 

The tour starts Museum of Finnish Architecture Kasarmikatu 24, 00130 Helsinki

The tour ends Helsinki Central Library Oodi Töölönlahdenkatu 4, 00100 Helsinki

The walking tour takes place in urban public space and lasts about 2 hours. The total length of the route is about 3 kilometers. During the tour, there is a short flight of stairs to enter one building (Tiedekulma), and a fairly gentle incline on Fabianinkatu. Along the route there are non-beveled curbs and in some places uneven terrain with height differences. On the walking tours, the progression is calm and includes several stops. There are no easily accessible seats or benches along the route. You can bring your own camping chair. The nearest accessible public and gender neutral toilet is located at the Museum of Finnish Architecture (Kasarmikatu 23, 00130 Helsinki).

The Museum of Finnish Architecture is not accessible. You can find more information about accessibility of the Museum of Finnish Architecture at this link:  https://www.mfa.fi/en/visit-us/accessibility-2/

On the architecture walking tour we follow the principles for a safer space, to which we are committed to in all museum activities. You can find more information about the principles of a safer space in the Museum of Finnish Architecture at this link:  https://www.mfa.fi/…/the-museum-of-finnish-architecture…/

For more information

Jemina Lindholm Manager of Learning and Public Programmes Museum of Finnish Architecture +358 45 7731 0476 [email protected]

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Walking tour of Helsinki's architecture

E arlier this month I paid my second visit to Helsinki. The first time I went it was winter and all I remember is dark, sludgy streets and ducking into bars to escape the cold. What a difference the summer makes. The light seemed inordinately bright, and with the long days I kept getting up from dinner feeling like it was mid-afternoon and time for a stroll. Helsinki is really two cities, each with its own season and its own rituals.

It happens that this year is Helsinki's 200th anniversary as the capital of Finland – in 1812 its Russian rulers moved the capital from Turku. But that's not why I was visiting. I was invited because Helsinki is the World Design Capital 2012. What does that mean exactly? It's an honorary title celebrating places that use design as "a tool to improve social, cultural and economic life". There have only been two before now – Turin in 2008 and Seoul in 2010 – but it feels like an honorific that was made for this city.

Design is to Helsinki as literature is to Dublin and samba is to Rio. It is simply a cultural manifestation of the national character, and Finns are sensible, detail-oriented people. Apart from the great Alvar Aalto, few Finnish designers or architects are widely known outside their own country. But to Finns themselves, designers such as Tapio Wirkkala and Ilmari Tapiovaara are household names. Their furniture from the 1940s and 1950s – once inexpensive, hard-wearing everyday items that now count as collectible classics – is still passed down from generation to generation.

Beyond simple, perfect objects, Finns have an innate sense of the role design can play in society. How many countries can you think of that make design a matter of government policy? Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, uses designers to address issues from sustainability to education. Let's just say they take their design pretty seriously.

With a whole programme of World Design Capital events stretching through the summer and autumn, it's a good time to go even if you couldn't care less about design. And the beautiful thing about Helsinki is that this compact metropolis of 1.2 million people is made for walking. The municipality is protective of its human scale – you'll find almost no building over eight storeys – and the gridded, pleasant streetscape makes it very difficult to get lost.

The character of this Baltic city is a slippery thing – at times you feel you're in eastern Europe, with the trams and the flat-fronted buildings, and at others, especially near the water, you could only be in Scandinavia. But one thing that is utterly distinctive is the Jugend architecture, the Austrian-influenced art nouveau style that manifested itself here at the turn of the last century as a kind of fairy-tale urbanity. You'll see buildings with heavy stone rustication as though they've been hewn from mountains, carved with decorative flourishes and the occasional gargoyle. Keep your eyes open and you'll discover no end of curious detailing.

One of the few conspicuously new buildings in the centre is the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (number 1 on the interactive map of the walk – click here to view) , designed by the American architect Steven Holl in the 1990s. It strikes a rare controversial note, not just because it is overtly contemporary compared with the rest of the city – Helsinkians are conservative about their architecture and prone to nimbyism – but because it is one of the few buildings constructed by a foreigner. It may not be one of Holl's finest, but the interior's curving concrete atrium and glass ceiling prove that the man knows how to work with light.

A few minutes' walk away is Aalto's Finlandia Hall (number 2) , a modernist iceberg overlooking Töölö bay. It is clad in white Carrara marble, a material ill-suited to Helsinki's temperature extremes, and the slabs on the façade have bowed in a way that accidentally makes it more beautiful. The best place to see it from is Sinisen Huvilan (number 3) , a café across the bay. From here you can appreciate the trompe l'oeil that Aalto created when he put a vertical black stripe down the façade – at this angle the stripe lines up with the tower of the National Museum of Finland behind it, as if the building were transparent. Visual gags aside, you could spend a whole weekend here just soaking up Aalto's legacy, in which case you'll want to take a taxi to the late architect's house in the northern suburbs – a lesson in modest elegance.

There are also new buildings opening as part of the WDC programme. One is the Lutheran Chapel of Silence (number 4) in Kamppi. This little wooden structure, shaped like an egg cup and sitting incongruously next to a shopping centre on the edge of busy Narinkka Square, is a haven from the city. Designed by K2S Architects, it has an unstinting minimalism which makes it an openly contemplative space. The oval interior is a work of perfect craftsmanship – it's like being inside a guitar.

If you prefer your cornerless sacred spaces less transcendental and more visceral, a 10-minute walk north will take you to the Church in the Rock (number 5) . This 1960s building, designed by brothers Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen, is pure Bond-villain lair. Dynamited into the granite, its rough walls are topped with a copper dome like a road-scraped penny. It has a quirky power, made magical by the fact that I was lucky enough to visit while there was a string quartet rehearsing.

Helsinki is not an instantly beautiful city – it is not St Petersburg across the Baltic, say – but its treasures reveal themselves gradually. This is a city of second glances, of details. You only have to look at the drainpipes to see the level of attention that goes into the streetscape. This sounds perverse – nerdy in the extreme – but everywhere I looked the drainpipes were carefully moulded around a cornice or tucked in flush with a façade. You could do a whole walking tour just observing lapidary door handles, portico lamps and sundry details.

In fact, Napa Gallery (number 6) has made a walking tour for you. The Font Walk takes you on a circuit of several central blocks, pointing out building signs and other typographical marginalia. Did you know that Helsinki's street name plaques, which are always in both Finnish and Swedish, are set in the Cheltenham font, designed in 1896 by American architect Bertram Goodhue? I thought not. Cities are made of millions of invisible histories, each detail a story. And even just a few blocks of the Font Walk wakens your curiosity.

If you're more interested in design of the consumable variety, then Helsinki is a treasure trove, particularly for modernist classics. There is homeware from Iittala (number 7) , textiles from Marimekko (number 8) and modernist furniture from Artek. Try Artek's secondhand shop, 2nd Cycle (number 9) – one of the few cases of a brand recycling its own products. Across the plaza from Kiasma there's a glass cubicle called Secret Shop (number 10) , where you'll find less orthodox pieces. But you should also pay a visit to Eat & Joy (number 11) , the organic food market piled high with local breads, organic cheeses, jams, smoked salmon and reindeer.

Finally, squeeze in a sauna, that most Finnish of social rites, which one local described to me as "the art of being alone, together". There used to be 200 public saunas in the city, but now that Finns tend to have them in their homes, only four remain. The architects and designers Tuomas Toivonen and Nene Tsuboi are building a new one, Kulttuurisauna (number 12) , right on the bay – and they plan to run it themselves. When I visited, it was still a construction site, but come late summer you'll be able to steam yourself senseless and then flop straight into the bay.

Flights were provided by Finnair ( finnair.com ), which flies from Heathrow to Helsinki from £166 return. Hotel Haven (00358 968 1930, hotelhaven.fi/en ) has doubles from €169. For further information about World Design Capital Helsinki 2012, go to wdchelsinki2012.fi/en

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Architecture Walking Tour: 1970s Vuosaari

Tuesday September 12 at 5 pm Language: Finnish | Participation: 10/5/0 € (card payment only)

Wednesday September 13 at 5 pm Language: English | Participation: 10/5/0 € (card payment only)

Please note that participation requires registration! Book your place with this form .

Vuosaari, the largest neighbourhood of Helsinki, has seen its fair share of transformation over the years. This walking tour looks at the architecture and the neighborhood of Vuosaari from the perspective of the 1970s. Although Vuosaari is a fairly typical 1960s forest town, the area also has interesting examples of 1970s architecture and showcases the changing ideals of urban planning. The tour reflects on how the social aspirations of an era are preserved in architecture and on the other hand affect modern times.

The walking tour delves into the architectural heritage of Helsinki to gain a deeper understanding of the ideals and values that shaped the urban landscape of Helsinki in the 1970s and beyond.

The tour starts at Vuotalo (Mosaiikkitori 2, Helsinki) and ends at Merikorttikuja 6, Helsinki. The duration is about 1 hour 15 minutes.

For the paid instances of the tour, the card payment is collected at the starting point of the walk in advance (15 minutes before the start of the tour) with a portable payment terminal. Cash is not accepted as a means of payment. Please arrive in time before the start time of the tour – the tour starts at even hours.

This summer, the Museum of Finnish Architecture will focus on the architecture of the 1970s: the main exhibition of the year, titled  Concrete Dreams – And Other Perspectives on 1970s Architecture ,  is open from May 17 to October 15, 2023 in The Museum of Finnish Architecture.

Participation

Book your place with this form .

A total of 25 participants will be admitted to one themed guided tour. Places are filled in the order of booking. For the paid instances of the tour, the card payment is collected at the starting point of the walk in advance (15 minutes before the start of the tour) with a portable payment terminal. Cash is not accepted as a means of payment. Please arrive in time before the start time of the tour – the tour starts at even hours. Please note that the booking is binding and personal: only one booking can be made per person per form. Successful submission of the form is an indication of a successful booking. Instructions for participation will be sent to participants by email about a day before the themed guided. If you have to cancel your participation, please contact:  [email protected] .

Accessibility

The starting point of the walk: Main entrance of Vuotalo, Mosaiikkitori 2, Helsinki.

Ending point of the walk:  Merikorttikuja 6, Helsinki.

The tour takes place outside. The guide uses a microphone to make hearing easier.

The length of the route is approximately 2.1 km in one direction. The route ends at the last destination at Merikorttikuja 6, from where it is about a 1.8 kilometer walk back to the Vuosaari metro station.

The route of the walking tour is on a paved road. At road crossings, the edges of kerbs are sloped. There are a few gentle or moderately steep slopes along the route. There are no stairs on the route. There are no seats at the stops on the tour. You can bring your own portable chair if you wish.

The nearest public toilet is at the starting point of the walking tour in Vuotalo at street level. The Vuotalo also has an accessible toilet, and the entrance to the Vuotalo is accessible with an electric button. The accessible toilet is locked by default, and you can ask to open it at the information desk in the lobby or the cafe. The accessible toilet is non-gendered, otherwise the toilets are binary gendered.

For more information, please contact:

Kaura Raudaskoski Producer of Learning and Public Programmes (Mon–Wed) Museum of Finnish Architecture +3584577310479 [email protected]

Related events

Breakfast Event: Best Practices in City Design

Debate: 1970s architectural ideas and everyday life today 

Mirroring – Product Launch by Iina Kettunen

Guided tours to Kustaa Saksi: In the Borderlands exhibition

Helsinki Walking Tour at Helsinki Architecture

• Local guide
• Food and Drink
• Private transportation
• Kluuvikatu, Helsinki, Finland The meeting point is in front of Fazer Cafe Kluuvikatu. The guide will be waiting for you at this point.
• Not wheelchair accessible
• Stroller accessible
• Near public transportation
• Confirmation will be received at time of booking
• Most travelers can participate
• This is a private tour/activity. Only your group will participate
• For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours in advance of the start date of the experience.
• Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma
• The Esplanadi Park
• Helsinki Cathedral
• Academic Bookstore (Akateeminen Kirjakauppa)
• Helsinki Central Railway Station

Similar experiences

• You'll start at Kluuvikatu Kluuvikatu, Helsinki, Finland The meeting point is in front of Fazer Cafe Kluuvikatu. The guide will be waiting for you at this point. See address & details
• 1 Senate Square Stop: 10 minutes See details
• 2 Helsinki Cathedral Stop: 15 minutes See details
• 3 The National Library of Finland Stop: 15 minutes See details
• 4 Jugendsali Stop: 10 minutes See details
• 5 Pohjola Insurance Building Stop: 10 minutes See details
• 6 The Esplanadi Park Stop: 10 minutes See details
• 7 Academic Bookstore (Akateeminen Kirjakauppa) Stop: 10 minutes See details Pass by Rautatalo
• 8 Helsinki Central Railway Station Stop: 10 minutes See details Pass by Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma
• 9 Helsinki Music Centre Stop: 5 minutes See details
• 10 Central Library Oodi Stop: 15 minutes See details Pass by Finlandia - Talo
• You'll return to the starting point

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Helsinki Walking Tour at Helsinki Architecture provided by Helsinki Dreamdays Walking Tour