The Lantern Bearers
Four stone figures holding illuminated globes.
Anne Pietarinen — CC BY 4.0 · Falk2 — CC BY-SA 3.0 de · Falk2 — CC BY-SA 3.0 de · Pete from Liverpool, UK — CC BY 2.0
Helsinki Central Station is among Finland's best-known buildings, designed by **Eliel Saarinen** after a competition in 1904 and opened in 1919 — the turning point at which Finnish architecture moved from National Romanticism to early modernism. The front is of pink Finnish granite, with a great **entrance arch** and a clock tower forty-eight metres high. But what everyone knows are the **Lantern Bearers**: four huge stone figures of men holding illuminated globes, two on each side of the door, by the sculptor Emil Wikström. They became the most famous sculpture in Finland and appear in advertising and cartoons. Inside is a high vaulted waiting hall with arches, cafés and shops — and the station is fully working, with two hundred thousand people passing through daily. **Free and always open**, and the first thing you see if you arrive in Helsinki by train or from the airport.
Four stone figures holding illuminated globes.
Forty-eight metres above the entrance arch.
Kaivokatu 1, Helsinki
Ateneum Art MuseumFinland's largest classical art collection: the Ateneum, opposite Central Statio3 minutes walk4.5
Kiasma Museum of Contemporary ArtA building curving like a wave of zinc and glass in the city centre: Kiasma by t3 minutes walk4.3
Oodi Central LibraryThe most famous library in the world today: Oodi (2018) was Finland's gift to it4 minutes walk4.9
Amos RexAmos Rex is the most talked-about building opened in Helsinki this century, and 4 minutes walk4.3
The Kaisaniemi Botanic GardenThe Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden belongs to the University of Helsinki and lies min5 minutes walk4.1By train, which could not be simpler: two ring lines, I and P, leave from directly beneath the airport and reach this station in about thirty minutes. The ticket is bought from a machine, on the app or by contactless card, costs little, and must cover both the airport and city zones (an ABC ticket). Trains run about every ten minutes from early morning to past midnight. Taxis are very expensive. **Be careful to buy the right zone ticket** — a city-only ticket does not cover the airport.