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FROM WOOD TO ARCHITECTURE |
Juminenko, the Information Centre for Kalevala and Karelian Culture
Kuhmo, Finland, 1999.
Design: Mikko Heikkinen and Markku Komonen
is a national cultural centre that also has international activities. Its objective is to preserve the traditions linked to the Finnish folk epic, Kalevala, and to promote the culture of Viena Karelia. The name itself is derived from folklore, although no explanation for the notion exists. The building is located in Kuhmo, which is famous for its chamber music festival, on a site near the church and the library, in the province of Kainuu. There was already a building dating from the 1950s on the site, the former regional office of the national Forest and Park Service, of which the old frame was utilised.
The building has an asymmetrically sloping turf roof supported on sturdy log columns. The turf grows heather and lingonberry, and the eaves are wide, as they were in old Karelian houses. The rooms are organised freely under the roof.
The timber exterior walls of the old house were kept, but the cladding was renewed. In the part housing the offices of the cultural centre, the partitions were pulled down and spatial boundaries were defined by the furnishings. The suspended floor of the two-storey section was also demolished to gain enough height in the exhibition space. Juminkeko is actually inside the existing old building frame, with the exception of the auditorium extension.
Juminkeko's megastructure comprises a system of glulam beams carried by log columns and a turf roof. The beams, columns and the fine-sawn weatherboarding have been treated with a mix of pine tar and linseed oil. The log walls of the extension have been made weather resistant by hewing the exterior surface to an uneven finish. The stairs of the main entrance and the floors of the vestibule and outdoor terrace are made of vertical wood blocks.
Photos: Mikko Junninen
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Juminenko, the Information Centre for Kalevala and Karelian Culture
Kuhmo, Finland, 1999.
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Juminenko, the Information Centre for Kalevala and Karelian Culture
Kuhmo, Finland, 1999.
Plan
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Juminenko, the Information Centre for Kalevala and Karelian Culture
Kuhmo, Finland, 1999.
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Juminenko, the Information Centre for Kalevala and Karelian Culture
Kuhmo, Finland, 1999.
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Juminenko, the Information Centre for Kalevala and Karelian Culture
Kuhmo, Finland, 1999.
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