A Midsummer Date Part VII

More than an hour after waking up we finally reached our first intended destination. The biggest crime against architecture in Finland in the 21th century.

This is the tuberculosis sanatorium I photographed way back in 2019. In three years things had gone from bad to worse.

Heating had been off for years. There were no single intact windows. Somebody had stolen 80m2 of the copper roof. And the city who owned the building insisted on doing nothing apart from trying to get a demolition permit.

Which they couldn’t obtain, because this was a really unique and valuable building. Or had been. Again new reports were being made about the condition of the building. The city would have saved around 40 millions by fixing their shit on time.

Our original plan had been to photograph the place the previous evening and then move on to new adventures together, if we enjoyed eachother’s company. Well, we were here only in the morning.

There were signs warning to stay more than five meters away from the building.

the building was as majestic as ever. I still hoped for a miracle rescue.

One small storage room was open. I wish these would have been used to renovate the building instead of just standing here.

More majestic window rows.

The open storage door.

This section looks slightly better.

The large balconies on the lakeside. Patients were taking air baths here back in the days.

Very classy graffiti.

The jungle has grown since my previous visit. The sheer size of the building can be seen from here. The Northern end is to the left of the picture, and the building still continues behind the bushes.

I am repeating myself time after time after time. This beauty should not be in this shape.

The lakeside facade is in an incredibly sad condition.

And using more light in photographing it only makes things worse.

They’ve tried everything to block the entrances. And vandals have tried everything to gain access. I believe, that the door to the right is the one through which I entered last time.

It looks like people spend their days carving plaster off the walls.

And so I finally reached the other end of the building.

I repeat myself time and time again: this is a tragedy.

If I ever get rich and famous, I’ll build a replica of this goddamn thing.

And so we’ve done a walkaround. We did find a promising looking point of entry. But we also did find something interesting, which I had missed earlier.