HELSINKI CATHEDRAL

Helsinki, Finland

This Evangelical Lutheran Cathedral is located in the center of the city and was built in 1852 as a tribute to Grand Duke Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia. Until the independence of Finland in 1917, it was called St. Nicholas' Church. Before the cathedral was built, a smaller church stood in its place, called the Church of Ulrika Eleonora, named for its patroness, the Queen of Sweden. This church was designed in the neoclassical style, and is a distinct landmark in Helsinki, with a tall green dome surrounded by four smaller domes. Designed by architect Carl Ludvig Engel, it is the climax of Senate Square and is surrounded by a number of buildings, all planned and designed by Engel. The cathedral has a Greek-cross floor plan. It is symmetrical in each of the four cardinal directions, each accented with a colonnade and pediment. Engel had intended to place a further row of columns on the west end to mark the main entrance, but this enhancement was never realized. The building was later altered by his successor Ernst Lohrmann, who added the four small domes to make a stronger architectural connection to the cathedral's inspiration, Saint Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Lohrmann also erected the two free-standing bell towers and the zinc statues of the Twelve Apostles at apexes and corners of the roofline.

I was invited by Kone, a global manufacturer of elevators, to visit their home offices in Helsinki, to celebrate their 50,000th elevator installation in one of our projects. We toured their offices and manufacturing plant, and even dropped one mile underground in one of their elevators, to appreciate the speed and smoothness of the ride. We met the inventor of their new electro-magnetic motor, which has revolutionized the elevator industry. I snuck away for a morning to sketch. It was mid-winter, and freezing outside, so I worked from the third floor of the University of Helsinki Library, next to the church.