Wise up! Sucker

It’s 2024 and pop is eating itself and hyper-capitalism is eating everything else. Everywhere we look it’s enshittification. LLMs and Grand-Theft-Autocomplete are turning the internet and search into a freaky funhouse while academic publishing is turning into a joke. Clothes fall apart; buildings collapse or spew mould more efficiently than the next-door neighbour’s techbro urban agri-ponics fancy-lettuce startup; water =H20+microplastics+endocrine disruptors. Developers promise cities they will build housing, build shitty buildings people can’t afford, while hiding their social corruption by investing in vegan hipsterism.

In 2015 I published a book of essays with my sharp-as-an-Xacto pal Eeva Berglund on Helsinki stories, where architecture and urban writers told their stories on buildings won and lost, community devotion to their neighbourhoods and cherished built heritage, alternative Helsinkis where activism and political power duelled.

Book cover for 'Uusi Helsinki' edited by Eeva Berglund and Cindy Kohtala, Nemo, 2015. Features a photograph by Lauri Rotko / Helsingin kaupungin aineistopankki, depicting a citizen participation building event in central Helsinki with the main Lutheran cathedral in the background. Senate Square is full of people.
Uusi Helsinki book, Nemo, 2015, edited by Eeva Berglund and Cindy Kohtala. Image via https://www.bookm-ark.fi/product/uusi-helsinki-det-nya-helsingfors-changing-helsinki/

The book is out of print and Nemo has since been bought out by Otava, but you can find the book introduction chapter, ‘A New Helsinki?‘ by Eeva Berglund and myself, on Zenodo, as well as chapter 1 ‘Oxygen for Töölönlahti‘ by myself and Andrew Paterson. The book is in Finnish, Swedish and English.

Chapter 3, ‘Here and Nowhere Else’, was written by Jonathan Glancey and is quite a biting examination of the neoliberal takeover of what used to be a unique city that eschewed the worst of globalization excesses. Likewise, chapter 4, ‘That Obscure Object of Desire’ by Tarja Nurmi, examines the power plays around the Helsinki harbour and Katajanokka areas at that time, with the Guggenheim Museum political drama that inspired an alternative architecture competition Next Helsinki spearheaded by Michael Sorkin and others.

Open spread of Uusi Helsinki book, Nemo, 2015, of pages 124-125. On the left is a chapter opening called "Here and Nowhere Else" by Jonathan Glancey, with a photograph by Matti Berg of a Helsinki skyline at sunset. On the right is chapter text. A quote says, "The Palace Hotel was too good to be true: it has since closed and nothing like it has taken its place."
Uusi Helsinki book, Nemo, 2015, edited by Eeva Berglund and Cindy Kohtala. Inside spread, chapter by Jonathan Glancey. Image via https://www.bookm-ark.fi/product/uusi-helsinki-det-nya-helsingfors-changing-helsinki/

At the time I wrote a snarky dystopian blog post about the commodification of Helsinki city centre. It is very Helsinki-insider, referring to, for example, Kiasma, the contemporary art museum (designed by Steven Holl), which is depicted in the cover photo for this post. (In the photo you can see the exhibition School of Disobedience by Jani Leinonen on Kiasma’s top floor.) The Ateneum Art Museum houses some of the most treasured pieces in Finnish art history and is located across from the central railway station (architect Eliel Saarinen) and the National Theatre (architect Onni Tarjanne), both in the Finnish National Romantic style. H&M is a global fashion conglomerate originating from Sweden with a reputation for fostering, if not originating, fast fashion and its extreme environmental footprint. Forum is a shopping centre in Helsinki city centre. Stockmann is Helsinki’s grand department store, akin to Harrrod’s, where ‘meeting under the clock’ at Stockmann’s main entrance is the stuff of urban legend. Aleksi is the nickname for Aleksanderinkatu, Helsinki’s main shopping street, where traffic is restricted mainly to trams, and runs from Mannerheimintie (another major street) to the shoreline near Katajanokka. Aleksi is also the name of Aleksi 13, a large clothing store on Aleksi street that closed in 2021. The Louis Vuitton shop is just about the only luxury shop in Helsinki, where conspicuous consumption and visible luxury branding is not exactly a shared cultural value. (Citation needed?) It used to be on Pohjoisesplanadi, another street with shops on one side and the beautiful Esplanadi park on the other, but moved into a shop-in-shop in Stockmann’s. Mikonkatu and Kaisaniemenkatu connect the railway station area with Aleksi and are filled with bars and restaurants. In summer they open terraces on the pavements outside which are very popular when the sun shines. The University of Helsinki also has many buildings in this part of the city.

Helsinki’s future, and my Cunning Plan
Posted on February 3, 2016
It appears increasingly inevitable that Helsinki will get a Guggenheim. This will indubitably cannibalize visitors from Kiasma and Ateneum.

However! In using my skills in foresight, exhibiting some Positive Thinking, I have developed a Cunning Plan: how to Turn Threats Into Opportunities. I welcome your own fine suggestions!

  1. When Kiasma becomes bereft of art consumers, it could be turned into an H&M flagship store.
    This in turn will divert traffic away from Forum and Aleksi, but this too is an Opportunity, as this traffic is mainly young people with no money. The empty retail footprint in Forum can house the surely-by-then-nearly-defunct Stockmann’s. The spaces along Aleksi can be turned into luxury mini-hotels for the Guggenheim visitors, who will more easily be able to Segue from their hotels to the charming little Stockmann boutique and the Louis Vuitton shop.
    The current Stockmann building, in turn, can be converted into premium co-working space for the creative and high tech industries. The high rents will push micro-entrepreneurs and local creatives further into the suburbs and drafty abandoned factories, where they belong. This will provide a more stable and sustainable platform for Helsinki’s Creative Capital (i.e. Google).
  2. Ateneum would make a fine home for non-local fast food chains: Starbucks on the main floor, McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut (and more!) on the top level.
    The current gift shop could be a special Helsinki area, where the burgers purveyed are named after the queens of Helsinki dining and lingering, which of course will have died long ago: Elite, Lehtovaara, Savoy, Sea Horse, Kolme Kruunua, Ekberg’s.
    This will obviously divert all business from the existing restaurants and bars along Mikonkatu and Kaisaniemenkatu. This too is an Opportunity, as it will help rid the city centre of those pesky local resident pedestrians – not to mention the over-supply of hairdressers, who tend to under-report their taxable earnings rather than moving it offshore to the Caymans as is normal. The summer terrace activity will move to the cruise ships, where it belongs. The resulting empty space can be converted into luxury flats for the well-heeled international student body, who will be attending the private educational institutes run by foreign corporations – institutes that will reside in the buildings formerly housing the now-extinct University of Helsinki.

In this, it is important to note that we must strike our own path! We do not wish to imitate others! Especially not southern European capitals, with their charming streets full of locally owned and operating bakers, butchers, green-grocers and flower shops – city squares full of laughing, playing children – but rather set our own standards (i.e. that of globalization). In this, we see there are no alternatives.

For happier stories, please see our book Changing Helsinki? Eleven Views on a City Unfolding (Nemo, 2015). Eds. Eeva Berglund and Cindy Kohtala, in Finnish, Swedish and English.

The book and several chapters have been used in course syllabi regarding urban development, design, activism, and so on. We were also approached by Swedish researchers regarding doing a Stockholm version but that hasn’t been realized.

So it is helpful and hopeful to revisit the book from time to time, especially when facing the frustrations I opened with that make one feel completely powerless. Positive change can and does happen; people do come together and collectively do and make things they feel are important.



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