I’ll Warm Up The Sauna Part I

The summer was well gone. I had transported my summer car to the summer storage, broken up with my summer date, had spent the Christmas and was feeling tired and miserable as usual during the winter.

I had learned about an area of nine abandoned blocks of shared flats, which had sat abandoned since 2020, when their ownership was changed from the student housing association to the city of Espoo. The reason? The buildings were built in the late 1970’s, were in need of excessive renovations and were located in a place where the rent of the renovated apartments would never match their demand.

As demolition was approaching, I was eager to go to the location to photograph. But during the winters I am usually so tired and inactive and unwilling to face the cold and darkness, that the main effort I do to leave my home is to go to work and to buy cheap red wine to fuel my photo editing and post writing.

A day after Christmas a musician friend of mine asked, if whe should spend the evening bathing in their sauna and hanging out. I was hesitant at first saying, that I should probably spend a rare occasion of going out to catch these blocks of flats.

‘Yeah, you should. You can see them from my balcony’, they said.

This offer was too good to refuse. I went to their place, we ate together, turned the sauna stove on and crossed the road to explore.

I am usually very fond of preserving old buildings. The moment I saw these cubes made me think, that demolition would probably be a favour for everyone.

Some of the buildings were already pretty badly vandalized and fences had been erected to deny access.

Large pieces of graffiti filled several of the windows.

Even several entrances had been covered with plywood.

There was even a former bar next to the buildings.

More similar buildings by the next street.

The courtyard. The buildings didn’t have stairways inside. Instead the apartments were entered through big balconies inside the block.

Another building.

And yet another. Fences were present here, too.

They seemed pretty tight. But time to see how to get around them.

By the way, this is what 3pm in Finland looks like in late December. In the North it’s already pretty dark.

The open courtyard of the block seen through the fences.

A much better look without any fences. Unfortunately this is no breakthrough, just a photo through the bars.

The facade of yet another building.

More fences, more stairways and balconies.

But finally a way past the obstacles.

And finally the classic of every abandoned house: a lonely shoe.