Concrete Dreams Part I

So, I’ve reached the last location of this day trip by the seaside. And it’s pretty different from the previous old villas and stuff.

This property is called Vuoranta. It was built in 1970 and originally served as the education center of Alko, the Finnish alcohol monopoly company. In the early 1990’s even hotel activity started in the buildings, and when Alko closed the education center down, it continued as a hotel.

The hotel was in the buildings until 2010. It served as accommodation for asylum seekers during the 2015-16 migrant crisis, but was abandoned by its Russian owner after that. Earlier in 2021 a Finnish property developer bought the protected buildings with the aim of reconstructing them into a nursing home for elderly people.

This extremely interesting picture from the side of the view is some sort of a loading dock. This is probably where food came in to the kitchen.

Actually the narrow end of the building was the only part, which could be photographed in full. The former hotel was very long and narrow.

The facade looking westwards. The taller part is the main entrance.

The amazing thing was, that some windows were stil mostly intact.

The main entrance. The steel doors weren’t very inviting.

They’ve actually fixed the windows. And the company, who fixed them is advertising.

Wherever that leads to doesn’t look very tempting.

The building was located in the woods and trees were in the way of photography.

Another blocked entrance by the basement stairs.

If this isn’t a prime example of concrete brutalism, I don’t know what is.

A look behind the corner.

Everything is boarded shut with a bit of imagination.

The amount of tags on the walls and thrash on the ground was pretty excessive.

It looks like there actually are windows behind those boards.