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Arabia Helsinki – it’s all about the right mix

Take an industrial site, over 140 years of design culture, young creatives and a few artists – et voilà – welcome to Arabia – Arabia Helsinki. For over a hundred years, the Finnish ceramics factory Arabia has been an integral part of Arabianranta (the factory also got its name from the property), a district of Helsinki. The striking factory building is visible from afar. Today, it houses shops selling Finnish design products, a library, a café, an information centre, the Arabia Museum and rooms of the Aalto University of Art and Design. Here, new ideas about future forms of materials and products are sketched and designed every day.

But we were more interested in the trappings than all the ceramic bowls in the design shops. Inside we were just for coffee. Just behind the factory building, the future begins. The prelude is a unique city park designed by Robert Wilson. Unique because it doesn’t look like a city park at all, but rather a kind of living room without a roof. Cozy, isn’t it?

Afterwards we go in search of the treasures of Arabia. Even the really nasty weather doesn’t stop us from roaming through the colorful residential area behind the factory building and discovering art objects. The residential area is not quite finished yet, but it already impressively shows how art, spatial planning, design, ideas about future forms of living and social networking result in a coherent overall concept. In contrast to the rather sterile Hafencity in Hamburg (which disappointed me), you can feel life here. An artist has been involved in each residential building and has implemented art projects either alone or together with the residents. Not all of them can be grasped at first glance. In some places we had to look very closely, but everywhere there is a connection to the place and the population.

My tip: take two hours and let yourself be inspired.

The residential area ends a few meters before the banks of the Vantaa River, just a few minutes from the Viikki Nature Reserve. A public park with walking paths forms the buffer between the buildings and the water. The transition between settlement and landscape is also taken up in artistic works. A pergola, for example, frames the view of Vanhankaupunginlahti Bay like a painting. When the weather is nice, the riverside area is sure to be a place to be.