OK Talk is a platform for bringing people together to discuss and develop the societal role and practices of the creative field. It combines different skills and approaches in events and publications with the aim to generate critical discourse, including asking relevant questions, raising insight and bringing forth tools for designers and artists to put to use.

OK Talk WDC discussion in June 2011 with Carson Chan, Kaarina Gould, Tommi Laitio and us. Photo courtesy of Bernhard Ludewig.

The OK Talk session at DMY opened up a discussion around alternative models of creative practice in Helsinki and Berlin, while reflecting on their value and support structures. The hour-long talk was accompanied by short presentations on different aspects to the topic by each of the participants.

Participants

Carson Chan, Architecture Writer and Curator / PROGRAM

Carson Chan presented PROGRAM, an initiative for art and architecture collaborations that tests the disciplinary boundaries of architecture through exhibitions, events and a residency programme in Mitte, Berlin and online.

Kaarina Gould, Programme Director / World Design Capital Helsinki 2012

Kaarina Gould presented Helsinki’s agenda for the World Design Capital 2012 project, which uses design to support cultural, social, and economic development in the city. The year of events under the theme ‘Open Helsinki’ aims to set a global standard, while serving as a meeting place for the world’s design community.

Tommi Laitio, Researcher / Demos Helsinki

Tommi Laitio presented his work on cultural politics and citizen participation with Demos Helsinki, a think tank for developing democracy to suit the needs and capabilities of the 21st century and the Dutch platform Premsela’s Republic of Design programme, striving to stimulate the development of design into an open cultural field.

Anni Puolakka & Jenna Sutela, Writers and Curators / OK Do

Anni Puolakka and Jenna Sutela presented a residency project that turns empty spaces in different cities into arenas of site-specific collaboration as well as temporary homes for OK Do, their peripatetic creative practice and online journal for bridging design, art and society.

Carson Chan, Kaarina Gould and Tommi Laitio. Photo courtesy of Bernhard Ludewig.

The event also saw the launch of ‘OK Talk Helsinki/London’, a book drawing from a series of earlier OK Talk discussions between twenty Finland- and UK-based designers, artists and theorists in autumn 2010. In addition to the best parts of the talks, the publication widens the discourse, offering new perspectives to design through essays, interviews and visual material. It is edited by OK Do and designed by Åh, including contributions by Åbäke, Bryan Boyer, Martti Kalliala, Zak Kyes, Markus Miessen, Karen Mirza, Anni Puolakka, Jenna Sutela, Teemu Suviala and Finn Williams.

The project has been supported by World Design Capital Helsinki 2012, The Finnish Institute in London and British Council Finland.

Hello Ingo.

It all started in 2006 with Solutions 1-10: Umbauland (“Remodel Nation”), ten provokingly simple ideas which would see Germany work it out after all, including a new grammar, a new political party, and the Great Pyramid, the biggest building in the world which would serve as a democratic tomb for millions of people. At the moment, there are already five Solution books, and more to come.

How would you describe the series and its overall premise? Why the nation?

Because the nation is so weak. Basically, in the Solution series authors are asked to develop an abundance of compact and original ideas for countries and regions, contradicting the widely held assumption that, after the end of socialism, human advancement is only possible through technology or requires a yet-to-be-established world order.

“The Solution series contradicts the widely held assumption that human advancement is only possible through technology or requires a yet-to-be-established world order.”

Is authorship relevant to you in regards to the visions of Umbauland and Dubai Democracy?

I’m happy with just having the ideas, but they should have the potential to work. The books are like seeds. It’s more up to others to put them into the soil. And just as actual seeds, they can remain seeds for quite a while.

You’re not interested in personally pursuing their realisation through, for instance, political means?

I had the idea to take one of the ten visions in Umbauland, the first Solution book on Germany, and try to promote it myself. I chose The Great Pyramid – the idea of a mass tomb for potentially everyone – and did the project mainly in collaboration with an entrepreneur, Jens Thiel. We organised an architectural competition, produced a business plan, collaborated with an engineer who thought about how it could be realised, founded an association to support it, and got everything documented on film. We got immense media attention and caused a big debate in Germany, but it was difficult to take the next step. However, the project still exists.

In general, the more real the visions become the better. But my capacities are limited. I want to continue writing. How it usually works when proposing a vision for a country is that you become the face of the vision, having one key vision and sticking to it – promoting it for years and years. But this is boring for me.

Solution 186–195: Dubai Democracy by Ingo Niermann.

‘Strategic design’ and ‘design thinking’ have become buzzwords not only in business and industry but also on a governmental level. How would you place the Solution series on this map, and where do you think strategic design (or the Solution series) ends and politics begin?

‘Solution’ is a very common term in economics and there’s no problem with strategic design. But why not do these things completely independently? When you’re not necessarily dependent on the realisation of your ideas, it’s possible to choose a completely different rhetoric, a completely different language. Momus, for instance, wrote short stories on Scotland [see Jenna's interview with Momus]. And his forthcoming Japan book will be like a novel. Tirdad Zolghadr’s book about America is largely an autobiography.

Who are the authors of the books in addition to the ones on Germany and Dubai, which you wrote yourself?

They’re either friends or people who actually approached me. Momus got involved in The Great Pyramid project by performing at The Great Pyramid gala. He asked me if he could contribute, and I immediately said yes. I mean, I wouldn’t have dared to ask him myself.

What would you say is the role and meaning of being inside and looking out vs. outside and looking in in terms of writing about your own home country or other nations like China or Dubai in your case? Or maybe Scotland and Japan in Momus’ case.

Actually it doesn’t feel that much different – doing a book on Germany or one on Dubai. We had these discussions with one of the contributors, Tirdad Zolghadr, because a friend of mine wanted to do a book on Afghanistan and we wondered whether it would be neo-colonial if she as a German did that. But I think there should be no restrictions. Everything works. I mean, Momus did a book on Scotland. He is from Scotland, but almost never lived there. Still, there is a connection. Tirdad was also born in the US, but didn’t live there so long, except now when he returned to teach there. His approach was more about looking at the biggest, the still most powerful country in the world.

Ingo Niermann at home in Wedding, Berlin.

Going back to the question of genre. Is the boundary between fiction and non-fiction interesting or relevant to you?

I’m a novelist, although most of the books that I publish are non-fiction. But the possibilities of making things up or not making things up interest me. When you talk about the future, you don’t know where the boundary is. That’s a nice thing. Usually novelists write about things in the past. Or they write science fiction. However, my idea as a novelist creating the Solution series is that when you talk about the future it’s fiction per se.

“When you talk about the future, you don’t know where the boundary between fiction and non-fiction is.”

And how has your work with the Solution series been received? Has it been perceived as “real”?

There has been a lot of questioning in relation to my work. For instance, we went to a village which we had chosen as a possible place to build The Great Pyramid. Some people thought it was “Borat”. We were also given some funding for the project by the German Cultural Foundation, but they wanted us to ensure that we didn’t actually want the pyramid to become real. They liked the idea of keeping the piece in the framework of fiction and culture as they are not allowed to support real-estate ventures.

Which nations are next on the list?

There will be a book on Japan, The Book of Japans by Momus. Starting again from Scotland, on Shetland Islands, there’s a group of people who claim that they travelled to the future of Japan. They are twelve people, and they are called The Idiots. Now experts have to judge whether their prophecies on the future of Japan are realistic.

Then there’s another one, The United States of Palestine-Israel. It’s an anthology with 19 solutions written by many contributors and edited by Joshua Simon. It’s really interesting because the term ‘solution’ is very familiar in the context of Palestine and Israel. People always talk about the two-state solution, but it’s actually a guarantor of stagnation. And the book is all about opening up that discourse. It’s about questioning that solution and offering an abundance of new ones from creating a multitude of states to that one and only, coming up with a common myth for both Israelis and Palestinians. Some solutions evolve out of art projects and some from the perspective of politicians.

What else are you working at the moment?

At the moment, I’m working on a long essay titled Drill, which will include elements of fiction. It’s as much about my personal poetology, a way of understanding what I did so far and what keeps it together, as it is about the fundamental practice of contemporary people in general. It’s something that already happens, but I’m projecting it into the future. The Solution series is part of it, you’re part of it. I try not to do any less than understand the post post modern state – something that people do, but they just don’t know it yet. There’s all this opening up and crossing boundaries when you think of the last decades. And Drill could be the next step. It’s about limitations that you give yourself. It’s the freedom to restrict yourself. Radical performance art from the 70s has been of great inspiration to me when thinking about the Drill. In reverse, my concept of a Drill Palace inspired the performance artist Marina Abramović to “drill” her live audience.

Better Dreams, edited by Martti Kalliala and co-written with Jenna Sutela and Tuomas Toivonen will be published by Sternberg Press in 2011.

To be honest with you, we aren’t experts in architecture, but really into it. Having been invited to collaborate with Newly Drawn, a group of young Finnish architects, we were taken by the opportunity to explore the topic from an outsider’s perspective, to interview interesting people in the field and dig deeper into our own surroundings as well as placemaking in China.

We started first by producing communications for Snowball architecture events organised as part of Finland’s cultural programme for the Shanghai World Expo, and ended up as editors of the Double Happy publication. Already in the beginning we came across the outlandish duplet: Finnish and Chinese architecture. “What could Finnish and Chinese architects learn from each other?”, we asked ourselves in the midst of trying to encourage Sino-Finnish architectural exchange.

Going to Shanghai in March 2010, we met with both Finnish and Chinese architects who told us about their projects and interests, providing answers to our questions. The discussions revolved around social and ecological issues and innovations, cultural differences and similarities, the potential for collaboration and increasingly crossing disciplines. The contrast between Finland, a small Nordic welfare state still dominated by a modernist stance on architecture, and China, a country undergoing rapid modernisation and thus pushing the boundaries of architectural design, proved to be big. While practitioners in Finland seem to long for a new air of dynamism and change similar to that of the post-war era, Chinese architects returning from their studies abroad are tackling the preservation and development of cultural identity in urbanising China.

For us, it felt natural to approach the topic of Finnish and Chinese architecture by investigating design processes rather than the end results. We set out to pinpoint areas that we found particularly important when it comes to improving life through architecture in Finland and China. Building inspiring and enjoyable cities with many layers and cultural variation as well as creating comfortable homes, work places and public spaces – and routes between them – are, in the end, objectives of architects in both countries. But while Finns know how to support privacy, the Chinese master communality. And while Chinese architects know how to tackle chaos and speed, their Finnish colleagues are experts in taking advantage of tranquility and empty space. These skills can be applied in both countries, even if the starting points and issues are completely different.

Double Happy includes stories that reflect some of the various facets of placemaking. Commissioned by Newly Drawn and head-edited by us, with writings and illustrations from a group of people invited to explore the topic, it draws a picture of Finnish and Chinese architectural environment today. Graphic design and art direction by Åh.

Contributors: Mathieu Borysevicz, Bryan Boyer, Christopher DeWolf, Che Fei 车飞, Pan Jian Feng 潘剑锋, Hanne Granberg, Hella Hernberg, Kaarle Hurtig, Martti Kalliala, Hertta Kiiski, Dylan Kwok, Katja Lindroos, Meri Louekari, Herman Mao, Song Min 宋敏, Bert de Muynck, Rami Niemi, Hans Park, Janne Teräsvirta, Tuomas Toivonen, Timo Tuomas, Valtteri Väkevä & Hu Yang 胡杨

囍 (‘double happy’) is a popular decorative design composed of two stylized characters 喜 (‘joy’ or ‘happiness’). There is a visual resemblance between 囍 and the two lucky digits ‘88’. In Chinese the word for number ‘eight’ (八) sounds similar to the word which means ‘prosper’ or ‘wealth’ (发).

According to Antto Melasniemi’s plan, instead of an entrance ticket, the participants were asked to bring a breakfast ingredient each. Tuula Pöyhönen’s home was a perfect backdrop for making breakfast and enjoying the discussion.

Taking a fresh view on spatial practice, the discussion looked at the creation, evolution and essence of places. Using Helsinki and London as starting points, it revolved freely around placemaking in relation to cities and citizens, planning and spontaneity, as well as infrastructure and spirit of spaces. It will be documented in a publication following the series of events in Helsinki and London.

Shohei Shigematsu and Nene Tsuboi

Hanna Harris, Amanda Levete, Shohei Shigematsu and Nene Tsuboi

Bryan Boyer

See you at OK Talk London on 18, 23 and 25 September at HEL YES!, Wenlock Road 1-3 as Part of London Design Festival! The OK Talk London tabloid will be out on Friday, 10 September.

The near-collapse of our financial system has had tremendous effects on the architectural profession. The number of unemployed architects worldwide is higher than ever before. This, combined with the fragmentation of the building process into the hands of specialist consultants and the shift from architects being in the service of public to private capital, has made a lot of the work and responsibilities that traditionally belonged to them simply disappear or move to other professional domains. This is why newly graduated architects have difficulties finding jobs that match their education, creative ability or ambition – not to mention the thousands of students facing an increasingly uncertain future.

It is clear that new professional models are needed to accompany that of the architect as we have learned to know her. A degree in architecture is rarely considered a generalist education in the sense that one in law or economics is. Why should it be – if one thinks of ‘architecture’ merely as the art of designing buildings (a noble art as it is). However, if it is allowed to encompass its full potential and considered the art of dealing with contradictory problems and breaking down multidimensional and complex agendas into understandable, readable, liveable and functional concepts, designs and strategies, it opens up a whole new vista of professional opportunity. From the United Nations to curatorial practices, from rethinking organisational models to bringing a pronounced spatial expertise to politics, architects can challenge and add value to existing institutional, economic, social and governmental frameworks.

Martti Kalliala is an independent architect and musician who is currently touring the world with his electronic music project Renaissance Man. He has worked with, amongst others, NOW for Architecture and Urbanism and OMA. Kalliala is also currently editing a publication on better dreams for Finland.

Hans Park is an architect specialising in urban design and research. He currently works in Tokyo for Nihon Sekkei International, and has previous work experience in Nairobi, Seoul and Helsinki.

Photo courtesy of Hertta Kiiski.

The project started in May 2010 with a Saturday brunch discussion at Sitra. We invited around ten Helsinki-based people from different fields to imagine a more interesting and enjoyable city and ended up with a bunch of ideas.

Dreaming up life-improving initiatives for Helsinki. Photo courtesy of Kaarle Hurtig.

After the workshop, we started taking the ideas forward, consulting experts and compiling our strategic design proposals into a set of concrete examples; some easily applicable and some crazier Clues to Open Helsinki. The team was also joined by illustrator Nene Tsuboi and graphic designer Anna Mikkola. In the end, we presented the ideas in the form of 17 + 1 postcards from the future.

Photos courtesy of Hertta Kiiski.

Here’s a couple of examples picked up from the set of postcards from Helsinki 2012:

A City of All Shapes and Sizes

In 2012, the city is built from the bottom up. There is more variation in the urban pattern: townhouses, bigger complexes, new and old buildings next to each other. Communal housing is becoming popular and people combine living and working under the same roof. A lotting system is introduced to distribute the urban spaces for different organisations.

Katu Mayors

In 2012, Katu (‘street’ in Finnish) Mayors live in the neighbourhood and are elected by their peers. They participate in city-level planning relevant to the area and ensure that the residents and local businesses are heard, breathing diversity into the city. These local trustees are supported by grants and permits which allow them to manage the environment, services and facilities.

Winter Holidays

In 2012, the unique seasonal circumstances of Helsinki are cherished through moving part of the holiday from summer to winter. Today, people stay in the city for most of the summer, making it more active, enjoyable as well as attractive for tourists. The value in cold and short Helsinki days will be discovered through encouraging interaction between people in the winter, too.

Urbane Industry

Few places have a craft legacy as strong as Finland. In 2012 the local talents have been saved from the brink of extinction through programmes to encourage and foster small scale industry in the heart of the city. Multicultural skills merge in the new collaborations between designers and manufacturers working closely together.

Finally, we organised a party on the occasion of the postcards from the future. Held at the Palm House of Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden, referenced in the set of clues as a living room in the city that could be used more actively, the event also featured super raw chocolate smoothies and music by the Katu Mayor of our choice Timo Kaukolampi.

Photos courtesy of Hertta Kiiski.

Please find more information as well as the rest of the clues at www.cluestoopenhelsinki.fi.

Sound garden

In Helsinki, courtyards are often reserved for household activities, like garbage disposal or carpet beating. Other than that, they are mostly used for passing through. There are sounds that big bins make when they open and close, and the clatter of steps when people walk home. But were the inner yards featuring more gardens, tables and chairs – places to meet and hang around in – there might be a hum of longer and shorter conversations, jingling of cutlery and plates, and sounds that gardening creates.

Avian melodies

Some clichés are true: birds’ singing makes most people happy. And if Finnish people love nature, why not bring more of it to the city? If Helsinki would have more trees and small parks everywhere, there would also be more rustle of leaves, and birdsongs of different kinds.

Concrete music

How to make the most out of asphalt, the dominant flooring material of the city? We would like to hear more click-clacking of high-heeled shoes, tapping of the canes of older people taking the streets, rattle of skateboards and, naturally, the sound of bicycles skidding and braking.

World mix

With Finnish and Swedish as the official languages, Helsinki is already a bilingual city and other languages, like Russian, are heard more often everyday. Bringing more ingredients to the mix and creating a babel of languages along with their accents, dialects, volumes, rhythms and intonations, would make Helsinki sound more interesting.

The Snowball project aimed to bring together Finnish and Chinese architecture through two events: one in Kiasma, Helsinki on February 12 and the other in Shanghai on March 25-27, 2010.

The events promoted Sino-Finnish architectural exchange. Tailored for Finnish architects wanting to collaborate with Chinese clients and colleagues, they presented an insight into contemporary opportunities, challenges and ambitions in China and provided the possibility for Finnish architects to present their work to local practitioners.

Snowball Shanghai programme booklet asks what can Finnish and Chinese architects learn from each other.

OK Do edited a programme leaflet for the Snowball Helsinki event as well as a booklet for Snowball Shanghai including articles about the purpose and background of the event as well as a short introduction to the Chinese and Finnish participants.

We also commissioned the design of the event material from Åh who left off with the idea of a snowball effect – a process that builds upon itself, forming a virtuous circle – apt for the series of events bringing together thinking and doing from two cultures. The blue ink snowball grows in size starting from an advertisement and a programme leaflet for Snowball Helsinki and reaching its peak in a programme booklet for Snowball Shanghai.

Lou YongQi, Aalto & Tongji Design Factory

Having spent 6 years studying in the US, Zhang Ke doesn’t have time to work too much outside China where there’s a lot of demand for urbanism. The same goes for almost all the other local architects we met. Wang Shu, the principal of Amateur Architecture Studio and the head of the architecture department at CAFA in Hangzhou, travelled outside China for the first time in 2001 when presenting his work at the Venice Biennale. “My work has its roots here, it entails a Chinese philosophy,” Wang Shu explains his thoroughly local architecture known for experimental building processes and indigenous use of materials.

Meng Yan and Lou YongQi are also overseas-educated architects who have decided to stay in China. Meng Yan is one of the founders of URBANUS, a think tank operating in Beijing and Shenzhen to provide strategies for urbanism and architecture, and Lou YongQi is the vice dean and associate professor at the department of architecture at Tongji University as well as the coordinator for DESIS-China network. In addition, he is the representative of the Sino-Finnish Aalto & Tongji Design Factory project, which sets out to combine design, business and technology education in Shanghai. Meng Yan and Lou YongQi share their views on the changing role of an architect today. “Design is changing from design doing to design thinking, and architecture needs to contribute to the new ways of development,” Lou YongQi says. “Many aspects of our lives should be re-evaluated, and architects should push the boundaries of their traditional role in order to act as a progressive force in the society,” Meng Yan continues. “For me, any building activity without comprehensive thoughtfulness will be insignificant,” Wang Shu adds.

“Many aspects of our lives should be re-evaluated, and architects should push the boundaries of their traditional role in order to act as a progressive force in the society.” – Meng Yan, URBANUS

The discussion with the foursome revolved around topical design methods such as anthropology, spontaneity and crossing disciplines.

Anthropology

China has many different cultures within it. “When designing to a new area, it’s important to go and stay there for at least a couple of weeks with no preconceptions; get to know the agriculture and talk with people,” says Zhang Ke. “One should neither look up to a culture too much nor look down on it. It’s important to be neutral and not to imitate, yet do something that the locals will accept.” standardarchitecture’s projects, like the Beijing Wuyi Elementary School Auditorium, the CRLand French-Chinese Art Centre in Wuhan or the Qingcheng Mountain Teahouse in Chengdu, often show both a comprehension of the past and a provocative approach in the modern context. “Our projects always include a degree of intellectual debate,” Zhang Ke continues. “They often explore and experiment with new means of construction in and for various cultural or historical urban settings in China.”

Meng Yan, URBANUS & Zhang Ke, standardarchitecture

Taking agriculture as a device for urbanisation seems to be a common approach among the new generation of Chinese architects. Wang Shu’s Amateur Architecture Studio has, for instance, shown an interest in adapting the rural Chinese recycling-based construction methods to the mass creation of new buildings. “Modern buildings are often considered at their best when they have just been finished, when they are shiny and clean, but with historical buildings it’s just the opposite: their value increases over time,” Wang Shu says. “Why not adopt a similar approach to new buildings through the use of recycled materials, for instance? I like materials that have a history and buildings that live, like animals.”

“I like materials that have a history and buildings that live, like animals.” – Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio

Many of Amateur Architecture Studio’s projects, such as the Ningbo Historic Museum or the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, explore a building’s relationship to nature and its human environments, and Wang Shu likes to take a stand on keeping up with traditional modes of living in a rapidly changing context. “In 20 years, almost 90% of the Chinese landscape, and the Chinese culture with it, has been demolished,” he says. “Every year, I visit the countryside, and it’s like a dream. But there’s no way of going back to the old traditions, so we should come up with new ways to return to the beautiful dream. For instance, not every citizen can have a big house because the population is too large – therefore, that’s not the right dream anymore.”

Meng Yan’s practice, URBANUS, explored traditional Chinese Hakka architecture in their spatial layout for Tulou affordable housing in Guangdong. Drawing on a collective way of living in between the city and the countryside, the idea behind the project was to find inexpensive ways of living together. “Unlike rich people, people with less income need to collaborate and share information in order to find jobs and maintain a nice living,” Meng Yan explains the thinking behind their round-shaped housing blocks. “Besides, their rooms are so small that they need to extend their lives outside them.” Having done a lot of research on low-income housing, studying how much the inhabitants pay for living, how much room do they need, what kind of functionality they find most important and how their safety needs to be ensured, URBANUS came up with design solutions such as a safety door but was surprised about many things that took place in reality. “Luckily, the client didn’t want the safety door because it was too expensive,” Meng Yan says. “As it happens, the people living in Tulou keep their doors open. The housing area is very safe because of the social interaction. People look after each other, and many of them even share cooking during the weekends.” Having had the possibility to continue their anthropological studies thanks to the far reaching thinking of their client, the real estate developer Vanke, URBANUS has learned a lot by observing the life in their building, and even lodging in them for some time.

Spontaneity

Wang Shu speaks for “infinitely spontaneous order” when it comes to designing new buildings. He thinks that modern architecture is often too clean to really resonate with the real life. “I like my buildings bazars rather than sculptures,” he says. “I want to involve people in the process of making places. To me, what makes buildings interesting is the way their inhabitants have repaired or redone them.” Lou YongQi agrees: “We as architects and designers need to learn to give up things. The most beautiful cities are not designed by us, they’ve been built over the years by many different people.”

“We as architects and designers need to learn to give up things. The most beautiful cities are not designed by us, they’ve been built over the years by many different people.” – Lou YongQi, Tongji University

Wang Shu has applied an open and collaborative approach to his architecture from the very beginning. “In 1991, a friend of mine wanted to put up a small temporary theatre in Hangzhou,” he explains. “He didn’t have much money, so we decided to use all of it for buying timber. See, my friend had worked as a stage designer and I knew that stage designers would never leave building material unused. Then, we started a spontaneous process of construction based on my preliminary design. I sat at the construction site smoking and drinking tea, observing carefully and telling the construction workers what to do on the spot – changing the idea of design from concept to action.”

Having worked in close collaboration with construction workers (and mostly with the same ones) for a long time now, Wang Shu knows that rather than practicing abstract thinking, craftmen think by hands. “They always surprise me,” he says. “For example, I designed the facade of the Ningbo Historic Museum using almost forty different materials, carefully planning how they should be placed and how the wall should look. Then, I gave my plan to the construction men and something totally unexpected happened. Due to safety structures, they couldn’t see the whole building at once but rather looked worked on small areas at a time, placing all the materials randomly and thus very differently from what I had planned.” Wang Shu ended up prefering the design of the construction workers over his own and enjoying the feeling of not being able to control everything in the building process. “My work is to give guidelines, a direction for the craftsmen who will then think by hands and come up with new things,” he notes.

Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio

Talking with Wang Shu, it appeared that he saw spontaneity the most interesting thing about Chinese culture in general. And there were similar thoughts in the air with other architects, too. Zhang Ke, for instance, has experimented with visible flooding pipes in standardarchitecture’s French-Chinese Cultural Exchange Center project. “Let it happen in China,” he states, referring not only to the flooding pipes quite randomly cutting a building but also to things like interior design projects changing the functions of buildings overnight, or the overall fast speed and short timeframe of projects.

“Let it happen in China.” – Zhang Ke, standardarchitecture

Crossing disciplines

“In China, young creative practitioners don’t feel a need to define whether they are architects, designers or whatever,” Zhang Ke says. “It’s interesting to work with people from different fields. The Sino-Finnish Aalto & Tongji Design Factory project also aims to combine design, technology and business in the education of future creative professionals. “We want to create an interdisciplinary platform where people can meet and start thinking differently,” Lou YongQi explains. Inspired by IDEO, the project focuses on new ways of development through social innovation. “I have realised a lot of architecture, 30 000 sqm of public building, during my career, but understanding people has turned out the most challenging task,” Lou YongQi says. “And how to make people with different ideas and skills to communicate? Instead of thinking about apples, oranges and bananas, one needs to think about mixing ice cream to get new flavours.”

“Understanding people is the most challenging task.” – Lou YongQi, with the experience of 30 000 sqm of public architecture

URBANUS collaborates with an artist, a multimedia designer and a graphic design office on a daily basis, organising workshops for sharing ideas at the office. They also run a space for contemporary art shows on the other side of the street from their Shenzhen office. Space e-6 involves different curators who put together exhibitions from architecture to photography, film and sculpture. Instead of calling themself an architecture office, URBANUS is a think tank. “We’re not different from typical architectural practices – all of them work hard and do more things that they’re capable of,” Meng Yan laughs. “No, seriously, when we started our office, coming back to China from our studies in the US ten years ago, we found that urbanisation was in a critical point here. And we saw new problems coming with it; problems that we hadn’t experienced before. So, we started thinking how we could define the problems and positioned ourselves as progressive architects asking questions and improving urban life. And not only the harware like buildings and spaces but the software, too – the life that would take place in these containers. It’s been quite time consuming to run an office like this, but we never once questioned our goal yet.”

Both Meng Yan, Lou YongQi, Wang Shu and Zhang Ke seem to agree that architects need to search for contemporary ideas through working beyond their typical boundaries and with different people. They all see the role of an architect as a progressive force in the society, emphasising the importance of research and questioning things in designing buildings or cities. “There are so many issues that are impossible to solve, so, instead, we need to start raising questions,” says Zhang Ke. “Naturally, clients aren’t always open for discussion and inquiry is often out of the question. Luckily, however, this seems to be changing as the clients get younger.” “Faced with continuous renewal, is it possible for architecture to be more flexible and participate in shaping new values?,” Wang Shu asks. “For me, architecture is only part time work. Humanity is more important.”

Marina, Esther and Florence on the construction site of a multicultural kitchen in Kalasatama.

Helsinki inhabits tens of thousands of immigrants who have all brought their memories, habits and delicacies with them. However, for some reason, this barely shows in the cityscape. Ahmet Aslan, the owner of the only Kurdish restaurant in Helsinki, Café Caisa, explains how difficult it is for a foreigner to open a decent eatery in the city. “Already when I came to Finland in the nineties, I wanted to open an à la carte restaurant serving food from my home country,” Ahmet says. “However, I didn’t have a Finnish education at that point, so I wasn’t able to get a license for serving wine – so, I ended up opening a lunch place first. When I finally received a local diploma, I returned to my original plans and put up a proper Kurdish à la carte restaurant in Kaisaniemi.” Café Caisa serves oriental home food including meze plates and fresh salads. “On the side, I also try to provide the customers with some insights to Kurdish culture,” Ahmet adds. He hopes that the Finnish government would learn from the likes of France and give more support to entrepreneurship within the restaurant industry. “This way, we might soon be known for our rich food culture, too,” he notes.

“It’s difficult for a foreigner to open a decent eatery in Helsinki.”

Opening an ethnic kitchen in Helsinki wasn’t easy for half Israeli and half Ukrainian Alexander Bitsak, either. Alexander moved to Finland a couple of years ago because he considered the country, in his own words, the best place in the world. He found a perfect space on Kustaankatu in Kallio for his Ukrainian pelmeni restaurant but, coming from Israeli at the time, was denied entrance to the country by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “So, I left my beautiful space, went to Kiova, and decided to try again,” Alexander explains. “Finally, I returned to Kustaankatu with a Ukrainian passport. Then, I renovated my restaurant and tried to make it special for customers and Finnish friends.” Alexander used to have a pizza place in Israel, but didn’t want to found one in Finland as he believes we have enough pizza already. “As a matter of fact, in addition to Ukrainian food like pelmenis and soups, my menu consists of traditional Finnish delicacies such as Karelian roast (karjalanpaisti) and Finnish fish pasty (kalakukko). It is easy to feel at home at Pelmenit, Alexander’s restaurant – and not just because of the familiar food. “The customers don’t come here only to eat, but rather to meet me,” Alexander says. “I ask how they are, how their family and health is. Unfortunately, now I’ve become so popular that I don’t have time to speak that much anymore.”

Like Alexander, Ahmet and us, also Marina Lindström from the multicultural co-operative Q-Coop thinks that Helsinki needs more ethnic kitchens. That’s why she’s planning to open a big restaurant and central kitchen in Kalasatama, a harbour area freed for residential construction only a few years ago. Her idea is to bring together people and cuisines from all over the world (e.g. West African, Iranian, Ethiopian, Indian and Kurdish) under the same roof, organise lunches, dinners and events as well as prepare food to be sold in smaller kiosks around the city. As her co-workers, the Finnish-born Marina has two Nigerian women, Esther Ademosu and Florence Awoyemi with whom she used to run the Yoruban Kimito Kitchen in Sörnäinen. Like many old harbour areas worldwide, food might help bring interesting people and activities to Kalasatama, too. But more than city planning in its traditional sense, Marina is interested in helping immigrants integrate and making Helsinki’s food culture – and through that, the whole atmosphere of the city – more international and open. After all, in the end, it is the cultural aspects that make a true city.

The article also appears on We Are Helsinki magazine’s food issue, 3/2010.