The School Of Many Uses Part I

This lovely shot is taken through the window of an intercity train.

I was serious about what I said about not letting interesting locations slip through my hands anymore. I had read about a cute little former school outside a regional town about to be demolished and decided to pay it a visit.

Before my trip I asked a local friend to go see if the place was still there. She sent one of her pupils on a scouting mission and when I got a message saying the school is still there and it’s all open doors, I booked a ticket.

But the intercity doesn’t stop in rural villages with closed schools. I had to change to a regional train in a town famous for its concrete architecture (not in a positive way).

This proved to be a real nostalgy trip. The national railway company changed its livery from red to green way back in 2009. Seems like they weren’t in a hurry to repaint their older fleet.

And so we are in the bustling metropole of Inkeroinen with a beautiful railway station.

They actually had an 19th century railway station in the village as in every other village along this line. Back in the early 1970’s they decided to modernize them all (read: demolish them and build cheap looking barracks.)

And here’s my destination, a cute little 1950’s village school. It was closed down years ago and the city tried to sell it. They found no buyers, so they decided to demolish it.

My little spies didn’t lie. It was all open doors.

At this point I still thought that I would explore a primary school. I had no reason to expect otherwise.

The first sight that greeted me.

I didn’t even have to enter to see, that the classroom wing was to the right and the gym and assembly hall to the left. Let’s start from there.

But before that let’s take a closer look at this piece of modern technology. According to the label it contains work plans for the semester 2000-2001.

Like every time I wish that they still made gyms like this. I mean with the windows and all it looks more like a cathedral to me.

It looks like somebody’s driven a moped inside. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.

A pile of random wood chips has come from somewhere.

An important accessory in every old village school: an old harmonium.

I’m still not tired of this view. I find it incredibly sad, that this building faces demolition.

Another accessory a little too familiar from my own school years: an overhead projector.

It’s not as beautiful to the other direction.

The small rooms next to the stages often act as storages for sports equipment. They also always include stage access. When they built these schools they thought of the performers.