Like I’ve already stated numerous times, I’ve been touring Finland so much by now, that I have a massive Excel file with abandoned buildings. The summer of 2023 was all about touring places listed in that Excel. So far I had been disappointed by the amount of successess. Apart from the old town hall, I hadn’t really gotten much off it. Instead the list was growing as was my frustration.
The following location was the old village store complex in the town center of Oripää. They had tried to develop the location with an architectural competition, but only gotten one entry, which didn’t even meet the requirements of the competition. The result:
They razed everything, including the cute hardware store. And so another never conquered location has become a part of history.
The previous summer I had befriended a young indie artist. She guided me to her former home village and told to look for a former tree house, she used to play in as a kid. Well, didn’t find it so I received a tip about a former municipal pool and sports hall.
Originally built in 1973, the place was closed in 2022 because of its bad condition. After that the municipality tried to sell it. I was once again a bit sceptical about finding a way in, as municipalities guard their property well. But I wanted to go and have a look.
There it is.
It was of a pretty ordinary 1970’s public architecture.
Behind the building was the main entrance and a ticket booth. Back in the 1980’s this was a popular music venue. Even Metallica has played here before becoming world famous.
This I guess is the main entrance.
And I believe that to be the sports hall part of the complex.
The booth.
There were stairs leading up to the parking lot.
The front yard of the complex.
The part with the swiming pool is to the left.
There was even a gym.
The poolside is my final hope of an entry.
The dressing rooms.
More stairs. The building was built in an era, when hillside buildings were fashionable.
Another familiar location. This here is a former leather factory, which I found back in 2022. During that visit I didn’t gain entry, but I was given zucchinis by the neighbours.
I still failed to gain entry. As the neighbours weren’t home, there was no zucchini this time. I had to leave empty handed.
I didn’t bother taking any outside photos of the doctor’s office building. This one is from the small wooden annex in the back. Clearly even it has served as an office.
The office opened up to a small corridor.
And along the corridor were of course more office rooms.
As a new health care center had been built decades ago, apparently this building just became municipal offices.
Drawings of the electrical system of the town hall from 1993. It seems that was when the latest renovations took place.
The curtain was drawn in front of the window.
It also seems, that a new ventilation system was added at some point.
More office rooms.
And another one.
Moving up the stairs then.
And it looks like the upstairs really has been apartments, which was my original guess.
Detail plans made by the municipality.
The apartments seem to have been converted into offices at some point.
But the old kitchens were still there. The old town hall can be seen through the window.
The neighbours were close.
So they took all furniture away but left the copier?
Looks like they left some archives behind too.
Old files, phone books and an ad promoting future elections.
A similar mess was present everywhere in the upstairs.
The biggest office with the biggest desk. Somebody important has been sitting here.
This office even featured a balcony.
A smaller office room.
An old typewriter. What a beauty!
And that concludes the exploration and my visits to this location. Both the old town hall and the doctor’s office were demolished in 2025 to make way for a new supermarket. Case closed.
The top of the stairs. There seemed to even be an attic.
The sign says that this is the closed ward. This must be some work place humour, as this has been an office building, not a hospital.
The parking lot of the store next door seen through the windows. This was the main reason why I didn’t enter earlier, but chose to come back at night. The store was crowded back then.
Another corridor it is. Somebody has removed locks and door handles.
There were more office rooms upstairs.
And fortunately some unblocked windows. The photos have been taken quite late in the evening, around 11 pm, but it still is this light. The summer in Finland is amazing.
Another room. The ceiling tiles are starting to fall off.
After being abandoned for 12 years, the decay starts to show.
Clearly at least two people have worked here.
The corridor ended in a lobby.
This office room was fairly large compared to the others.
At the back there was one large hall. I already knew what it was, but I double checked.
Quite right. It was the meeting room of the municipal council. I’ve never before photographed in one.
Time here stopped years ago.
And this here is the municipal council’s room. Not big, not spectacular, very ordinary.
I wonder, why I didn’t photograph in the attic. The apartment wing seemed to be inaccessible.
So time to head towards the doctor’s office building.
My former boss has a Midsummer tradition. Yearly their family and a family they know go to my boss’ summerplace to eat, bath sauna, swim and chill. And in the past years we have had an even stranger tradition: I crash in the middle of this tradition. After visiting the town hall, I called them and asked if I could pay them a visit. As they are all very kind hearted people, I was instantly welcomed.
And when I got there in a half an hour, the sauna was already warm. We took a bath, I took a swim in the nearby lake (which I rarely do, the water is almost always too cold for me) and finally I was invited to dinner. As always they invited me to stay for as long as I wanted to, as always I declined, because adventures didn’t wait.
And in we are. This is the lobby of the town hall, where time seems to have stopped.
The main stairway. It wasn’t yet the time to go there.
Instead I started exploring the office rooms downstairs. There was very little light, so I knew already, that the photos wouldn’t be any masterpieces.
A lot of the wall area had been used for pinning things up.
The map of the area displaying the old coats of arms of the municipality of Mynämäki. The coat of arms was changed when the municipality merged with Mietoinen. The merger took place before the town hall was abandoned. The maps weren’t changed, though, it seems.
Like I said, the photos weren’t classics this time.
I suppose the town accountants have worked here.
The curtains are almost as vintage as everything else in the house.
The sign of important people back in the days.
Greeted by a dark corridor.
The files had been thoroughly emptied. No secrets here.
The room sizes varied greatly. Some were big for several people, others were one person cubicles like this. Or at least I hope that no more than one person was forced to work here.
And a larger room for a change.
That’s not the place for curtains.
Even the curtains were full scale vintage.
They had emptied the place pretty well before closing it.
And really the most exciting things were empty files.
An old shelf with obsolete electronics, and the old, municipal safe.
They didn’t bother to empty their collection of one VHS cassette.
So they were really using cord phones and watching VHS cassettes here all the way until 2011, when the place was emptied?
Again a previously visited location. This is the old town hall of Mynämäki, which I had unsuccessfully tried to explore the previous August. I was back for another attempt.
From this side the place looked as closed as ever.
Moving to the backside.
There was a second building at the back yard. I’ve always thought that this has been an apartment building for the municipality staff, but it’s the former doctor’s and nurse’s office.
Another view of the doctor’s office.
Unfortunately those two doors only led to small storage rooms.
But the side door was clearly open. The only issue was, that there was a supermarket right behind me, and because it was the afternoon of the Midsummer eve, every place was crowded.
Even the town hall’s main entrance seen here was slightly ajar.
I chose not to enter, but instead headed to the summerplace of my former boss some 30 minutes away. And a plan was already hatching in my mind.
The final location in this city. It was originally a small apartment building built in 1947, where workers of the nearby textile mill lived. It originally featured six apartments before being converted into an office building for the textile mill’s personnel department. Since 1993 it has provided working spaces for artists.
In bad condition, a detail plan allowing its demolition and replacement with a bigger house has already been approved, and now it’s just waiting.
The architecture is very typical for its era.
Although not a very spectacular building, I find its demolition pretty sad. I like this style of architecture very much.
There had clearly been many ways in, but they had all been blocked by now.
I wonder, what that is.
It looks like somebody wanted to decorate their windows.
More beautiful details.
There was a daycare center located in the old apartment building of the textile mill’s leader. It was acting as a daycare center and was protected.
That was a productive day. Five locations, no entries.
After the mass factory we drove to the other side of town to the following endangered landmark. This here is a former textile mill, which served as a center of arts and culture after factory use ended. There was a theatre, rooms for dance practice and workspaces for artists.
They were evicted, because this huge complex built in 1899 overlooking a river was supposed to be turned into 160 luxury apartments. The project was announced in 2022.
But in the spring of 2023 the project was cancelled. According to the construction company, there was so much water damage, microbes and other contamination, that the building couldn’t be turned into apartments.
At the moment I took these photos they were still evaluating options.
Usually when they start evaluating options, things end up being demolished.
And that would be a pity. Because there are very few complexes like this left in Finland.
But this is what happens, when money does the talking.
It seems, that some newer sections of the factory were already demolished in the 2010’s.
As I expected. No entry. But at least the building has now been documented for future generations.
The following location was again a part of important Finnish industrial history. It was the mass production facility of a company producing tiles used for instance in floors, facades and bathrooms. Built in 1913, it is the oldest known building in Finland, which has been made of reinforced concrete.
Production in the area ended in 2015 and most of the factory was demolished to make way for residential development. The mass production facility was protected and was supposed to be converted into apartments as well. However the company developing the area had applied for a demolition permit, which was just recently granted. I never expected to gain entry, but I had to go have a look anyway.
And there it is. What a beauty. I can’t help to wonder, how the tags on the walls just below the top floor windows have been made.
But the “Turun tauti” text on the walls is a very strong statement. Turun tauti, “the illness of Turku” is a term, which means the demolition of historically important buildings and corruption related to it. Despite named after the city of Turku, it is nowadays associated with this phenomenon in all other cities and towns in Finland as well.
Of course the demolition permit was appealed. As these photos were taken, the new detail plan had already been appealed too and was in the courts.
So no entry, as I expected. But I got to document another important building on my list.
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