This absolute beauty is the Sinervä primary school in the small municipality of Multia. Back in the late 2010’s the municipality were faced with their secondary school being in a very bad condition. The question was, whether they should demolish or renovate.
They chose to demolish and build a new school for all elementary school pupils from grade 1 to 9. When the pupils moved to the new school in 2021, this former primary school was abandoned.
The politicians discussed whether to demolish it or try to find new use for it. The smartest ones had realized, that this was the biggest, most beautiful and most monumentary building, which would ever be built in this small village. They tried to save it. No decisions had been made yet, but I was expecting money to talk. I wanted to document the place before they demolished it, because I found it so beautiful. Never did I ever expect to find a point of entry.
The wing closest to the camera is the apartment wing. Behind it is the gym wing. The classroom wing is invisible behind it.
The other side. Apartment wing, gym wing and finally the classroom wing.
How do I know this without being inside? Because I’ve photographed so many similar buildings.
Touring the school.
The classroom wing had side corridors on all three floors.
The back of the school had views to a lake. The new school is between them to the right of the picture.
An entrance, probably to a lobby between the gym and classroom wings.
Don’t place mattresses or other gym equipment in front of the doors, please.
I’ve now been around almost the entire school and as I expected, there was no entry. We were already heading back to my car, when my experienced urbexer eyes noticed something off with the door to the apartment wing. The entrance in question can be seen far right in the picture.
The one who last left hadn’t made sure that the door closed behind them. It was held open by the latch of the lock. This was amazing luck.
We first tried to check the apartments, but they were all locked.
The beautiful wall paintings present in so many schools and other public buildings from this era.
I guessed, that the different wings of the school would share a basement, so we went downstairs looking for a way to the classrooms and the gym.
The school was built in 1952, when the world was quite different. This loom has been sitting here for ages.
Even a spinning wheel was in the basement.
On top of the old piano is a very old map of the municipality.
This corner contained old school desks and chairs.
Finally some light.
A corridor. As you can see from the green light in the corner, the electricity of the building is still on.
Up we go.
And a straight bingo it is. The school gym, which now acts as a storage of random things.
These are the most beautiful spaces in old school buildings.
A blurred picture of an old harmonium.
Moving on to the classroom wing. It looks like the pupils have been allowed to decorate the walls when they left for the new school.
The ground floor corridor of the classroom wing.
And the first classroom, which also turned out to be the only one we explored. As soon as we left the room, we noticed a motion detector in the corridor. As the school still had power on, there was a real risk, that the detector was still working and would raise an alarm.
So we ran away through the basement, locked the door behind us and just kept on wondering how the hell we had such luck.
The school didn’t have that much luck. The debate died down and the demolition decision was made in the spring of 2023. That summer this beauty vanished for good.