A year and a half in Ullanlinna

We are moving on the last day of 2011. Yeap, it was good and solid one and a half year in Ullanlinna. We got an offer from a student housing company and therefore moving to Arabia where Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture is. As much as I am looking forward to my time in Arabia and Vanha Kaupunki I will miss Ullanlinna, Eira, and Punavuori where the most wonderful restaurants, cafés, and creative studios in Helsinki are today.

This is the courtyard of the building I have lived in. I’ve loved it, thought I still do not know what the brick building is for. I am certain that no one lives in it.

It was a warm winter day. Hyunsun and I used to walk this street to the shore. Very nice, calm street with a small park and a church on the side. An office of Genelec, the manufacturer of highly regarded active loudspeaker systems especially for professionals, is on the right hand side.

A cold winter day … I think it was probably something like -20 Celsius.

Kaivopuisto, one of the oldest and best known parks in central Helsinki, becomes a snowed desert in the winter.

Scaffolded. Hyunsun and I have lived through the long renovation of getting the outside walls re-plastered, cutting half the staircases out, and getting elevators into the building. It is only sensible that our landlady giggled when we told her that we will move out. Well, significantly cheaper rent is always a good motivation.

Hyunsun’s waiting for me walking back from the garbage bins.

Old buildings. This woud be what I would miss the most. You just walk around and what you see is these incredibly opaque architecture well-suited to the climate–cold, cold winter. Indigenous.

10 mins walk brings you to Hernesaari. Thought I am not a big fan of the newly built apartment complex, but this I like. A well-suited empty space for everyone.

Karaoke Bar Restroom right by the Church. Oddly well-suited.

Probably from somewhere around Laivurinkatu 35. You can barely see Viisikulma, the five corners which a really cool Finnish contemporary jazz band is named after.

All photographs here are made with Minolta CLE, Summicron-C 40mm f2, and mostly Kodak GC 400.