Senate Square
One Neoclassical block by Engel.
Hans Hillewaert — CC BY-SA 3.0 · В стиле Пётр Петрович Павлов — Public domain · Thomas Taylor Hammond (1920-1993) — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Unknown authorUnknown author — CC BY 4.0
After Finland's annexation by Russia in 1809 the Tsar wanted a capital resembling his own, and commissioned Engel, a German who had worked in Petersburg, to build the whole centre in one style.
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Finland's first picture: a white cathedral with green domes crowning a vast flight of steps above Senate Square — designed by Carl Ludvig Engel between 1830 and 1852 in Neoclassical style when Helsinki was the new capital of a Russian grand duchy, so the whole square with its yellow and white buildings reads as one block of a small St Petersburg. The interior is plain, Lutheran and bright: white and grey with almost no ornament, a gilded pulpit, statues of the three reformers and a great organ — its silence the opposite of the bustle outside. The steps in front are the city's bench: students and visitors sit here, New Year's Eve concerts and the Christmas market fill the square below. Seen in ten minutes and sat on for an hour. Loveliest early in the morning when the square is empty, or in December under snow and lights.
One Neoclassical block by Engel.
The city's open theatre in every season.
Lutheran plainness and a great organ.
Unioninkatu 29, Helsinki