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Thorvald Lindqvist’s unique research from the 1980s provides Information about historical colours of Helsinki for today’s builders and restorers. Photo Helsinki City Building Supervision Office/Leena Jaskanen.
The Finnish Colour Association (Suomen väriyhdistys) celebrated International Colour Day, 21st March, by giving the Iris Award to the Helsinki City Building Supervision Office, Tikkurila Oyj and Metropolia University of Applied Sciences Degree Programme in Paper Conservation.
The award was given for their unique collaboration on reviving and saving for posterity the colour research of building conservator Thorvald Lindqvist. In the 1980s Lindqvist charted and collated facade colours of houses in Helsinki, representing building styles and periods from the Empire classical era to the 1960s. Lindqvist’s work was stored on the shelves of the Building Supervision Office as colour samples and notations in dozens of binders that were all but forgotten for three decades.
In 2012 the Building Supervision Office started a unique collaboration with the paint company Tikkurila to resurrect Thorvald Lindqvist’s historical colour plans. The project involved analysing Lindqvist’s notes and samples and converting them to present-day colour codes and tinting recipes, thus making them available to today’s planners, architects, builders.
‘The Helsinki Colour plan’ is an internet site, provided by the Building Supervision office, that makes these lost colours available again to all citizens. It includes scanned images of the original colour samples as well as a facade colour search functions by map, area, address and period. It also provides detailed advice and information on on methods and materials for repainting and resorting historical facade colours. See: (http://www.hel.fi/static/rakvv/varikaava/index.htm
Tikkurila’s contribution was to create the tinting recipes and new codes for Lindqvist’ colours, making them available to consumers and builders all over the country. In addition, Tikkurila set up an interactive web-service ‘Helsinki-värit’ (http://www.tikkurila.fi/helsinkivarit) that helps customers choose appropriate colour combinations for their colour restoration and repainting projects. The interactive service provides a digital colour chart and images of building styles, where the colours can be assigned according to Thorvald Lindqvist’s research findings.
Students of Metropolia University of Applied Sciences Degree Programme in Paper Conservation rounded off this multidisciplinary project in 2013 by conservating the original written pages and colour samples recorded by Thorvald Lindqvist, thus ensuring there availability to future researchers. ‘Helsingin värikaava’ was one of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012.
Facade colours are among the most salient of urban visual elements. At the same time they are the most most vulnerable, both physically and culturally. The above project is an example of a joint effort to preserve an often neglected part the cultural history and ‘collective memory’ of our everyday surroundings. It is also an example of what can be achieved by open-minded collaboration between three distinctly different operators representing planning supervision, commerce and education.
Architects Leena Jaskanen and Marjatta Uusitalo together with their assistant, architecture student Anna Heikinheimo were responsible for the project at the Building Supervision Office. Design Manager Marika Raike, Customer Category Manager Marcus Wallström, Marketing Coordinator Rya Rosenlund-Tiainen and Tikkurila Color Service were the collaborators at Tikkurila Oyj. The conservation work at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences was done by students Jiri Taleva, Karoliina Valli and Hanna-Leena Väisänen under the supervision of lecturer Päivi Ukkonen.
From left to right: Marjukka Haavisto, Anna Heikinheimo and Olli Turunen (Helsinki City Building Supervision Office), Marcus Wallström and Marika Raike (Tikkurila Oyj), Päivi Ukkonen and Jiri Taleva (Metropolia).
Harald Arnkil
Chair, Iris Jury
Vice President, Finnish Colour Association
