Over a thousand works published online by the Helsinki City Museum
The Helsinki City Museum has published online over 1400 additional works. These works have previously been available for the public only inside the museum walls. The works published now include art, posters, postcards and construction drawings.
For the first time in the museum’s history, the new initiative includes copyrighted material; over 1400 new works. Publishing these works grants the public access to those kinds of artworks, posters, postcards and construction drawings that have, until now, only been available inside the museum. The works have been published in the Helsinki City Museum’s Finna -site, which will increase the already vast content of the site. The site exhibits the history of Helsinki and its residents through illustrations and photographs, objects and art.
The works of the Helsinki City Museum document the Helsinki of the time of their birth. The authors have wanted to store vanishing views while the cityscape has been changing. The works also depict the work and leisure time of the residents.
The arts collection includes works from both maestros as well as amateurs. The most renowned artists of the collection include Magnus von Wright, William Ahlgren, Greta Hällfors-Sipilä and Tove Jansson. Some of the interesting amateur artists include Oiva Viinipuro and Uno Heikkinen. The core of the arts collection lies in the changing of the city, which has been commemorated with varying styles.
The poster collection describes the multitude of events taking place in the city. In these posters, Helsinki is portrayed as a hub for exhibitions and fairs. The war time brought aid work and reconstruction also to the poster art. The posters that are published now were designed as adverts for diverse exhibitions and fairs by such famous graphic designers like Holger Erkelenz, Göran Hongell and Jorma Suhonen.
The changing of the city is also visible in the construction drawings of Elias and Martti Paalanen. Elias Paalanen drafted the drawings for first small detached houses in Finland by the request of the social administration in 1922. Buildings designed by Elias Paalanen’s agency were built, for instance, in the districts of Kallio and Töölö in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
Helsinki City Museum site on the Finna search service: https://hkm.finna.fi/.
Finna is an online search service offering Finnish archives, libraries and museums the possibility to bring together their materials for everyone to find and enjoy.
Image: Alma Judén: The Pitkäsilta and Siltasaari, ca. 1900. Helsinki City Museum.
