As an active reader of news about soon to be demolished buildings, I had managed to locate a former nursing home on the outskirts of the town Hämeenlinna. It had been emptied and was destined for demolition. But I reckoned, it would still be there.
It was an early Sunday afternoon. I was tired of travelling all weekend and it was raining extremely heavily, when I arrived to the location. Despite the rain I started doing a walkaround.
The colorful 1950’s main building was up the hill. That was my main interest, but I decided to start with a smaller building just a bit to the right of this photo.
There we have it. The whole complex was built on a hillside, something very distinct in the early post-war decades.
After the place was abandoned, it had served as a public graffiti wall. Demolition was only months away.
The walls were full of graffiti. No windows were broken, no doors were open. Or that’s what I thought until I decided to try one of them.
It was unlocked. And I was able to enter a fully intact nursing home abandoned some ten years earlier.
It was raining extremely hard by now and my flip-flops were soaking wet. They made an awful noise, and as there was no broken glass in the building, I removed them and explored the premises bare footed. This is something, which I had never done before, and it was quite an experience for some reason.
The rooms were empty, but most of them featured some sort of decorations.
The graffiti on the windows was a rather strange impression from the inside.
It actually even affected the lighting inside, which was a strange realization.
The painters who had drawn here weren’t very skilled. But the old nursing home did probably provide a good starting point for the aspiring street artists of the town.
The decorations inside the rooms were somewhat too modern for a nursing home. I’m making guesses now, but perhaps the buildings had been used for something else between being a nursing home and abandoned.
“Live well, laugh often, love a lot”. Quite a message.
The deeper I went, the more unclear the use of the buildings became to me. This building featured just a few ordinary rooms and several ones with tiles and large faucets.
Another space, which has been at least used as a kitchen. There was even a canister half full of some cleaning solution here.
Another colorful window in the stairs to the basement. I once again skipped that part of the building, as the air coming from there was very cold.
Another minor wall decoration. But this was the spirit of this little side building: wall stickers and coloured windows.
The first building was quickly explored. In the next post I’ll try to find a way to enter the main complex. And it could really be called a complex.