HS Helsinki The house that burned down on Kulosaari was a valuable villa over a hundred years old, drawn by a legendary architect with a fascinating past.

Sight was inconsolable on Kulosaari in Helsinki on Granfeltintie on Wednesday morning. A gray statue of smoke filled the entire vicinity. The lights of numerous fire trucks flashed in the middle of the smoke.

The three-storey garden villa on Granfeltintie 3 was on fire. It caught fire for a hitherto unknown reason on the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, and the extinguishing work continued well into Wednesday. There were no injuries in the fire.

The alarm to Granfeltintie came at about 2.40 at night. Firefighter on duty at the Helsinki Rescue Department Tommi Sivula told HS late Wednesday that the firefighting work ended around the evening.

After that, the post-guarding began with the help of one rescue unit. In the post-surveillance, the colonies left behind will be extinguished as smoke begins to rise.

“I’m terribly afraid the whole night will go with it.”

Fire is always a tragedy, but it is a special tragedy when it comes to an old and historic value house. This time there was just such a building in the middle of the flames.

According to Sivula, the house was completely destroyed in the fire and is in an unusable condition.

The rescue service told a message service on Twitter that smoke should be watched out in nearby areas by closing windows, doors and ventilation if necessary.

Read more: A detached house burned down on Kulosaari in Helsinki was completely destroyed – the smoke rose so much that the house is barely visible

Granfeltintie the first owner in the history of the villa was an architect and draftsman Einar Flinckenberg (1884–1933). He designed the house for his own family and reportedly moved into it as soon as the house was completed in the early 1910s.

Flinckenberg’s wooden home has a basement and three floors. The house has a handsome angled ceiling and large windows with bay windows.

In addition, between the plot and the road stands a stone wall erected by the first master, which is decorated with a later-planted mountain man.

On April 4, 1910, the board of Kulosaari had given him permission to build two villas on plot number 64, connected by a veranda. However, Flinckenberg ended up building two separate villas on his own plots. Next to it, in 1912, rose the so-called “Swens House”, which was given the number 65 as its own plot.

Flinckenberg originally lived in the house with his Karelian-born wife Impin and his daughter Irman with. Soon a boy was born in the house.

Flinckenberg and his family lived in the house he designed for a few years. They then moved into the Swens house next door.

According to a contemporary estimate, Flinckenberg was “The type of good architect, he was intelligent and sharp-witted, he had a practical eye, a skillful hand, and an advanced sense of relationship, rhythm, and color. He was, moreover, a full-fledged companion, a humble, chivalrous, and faithful friend, a gentleman of conduct and performance. ”

The master architect died in 1933 after only a short time as a city architect in his hometown of Vaasa.

Architect Einar Flinckenberg can rightly be considered one of the early architects of Kulosaari, although he is not usually mentioned in the list of architects who received their own titles. Bertel Jungin, Karl Lindahlin and Lars Sonckin alongside.

Flinckenberg alone or together Karl Hård af Segerstadin There were a maximum of eight large and handsome villas designed by Kulosaari. Seven of them are still preserved.

Located on the corner of Old Sled Hill and Schybergsonintie and on the corner of Kulosaarentie and Bertel Jung Road, the two large wooden villas represent perhaps Flinckenberg’s most original style of youth.

Flinckenberg’s best-known work, together with Segerstad, is the Hakaniemi shopping center in Helsinki, which was completed in 1914. In addition, Flinckenberg has designed a building at Unioninkatu 45, which was the city’s largest residential building.

However, the hallmark of the giant Unioninkatu is a ten-story tower in the middle of the building. Its top floor offers even more handsome views of the sea, the Gulf of Töölönlahti and the towns of Kallio and Kruununhaa.

Kaisaniemi School and Kallio Library, among others, have also received a touch from Flickenberg.

Granfeltintie the life of the villa after Flinckenberg is described in numerous books on the Kulosaari building stock. The house has survived the Winter and Continuation Wars, among other things.

Sometimes a large house has been inhabited by several families. The house has been thoroughly renovated many times over the years. The house has had a variety of heating systems: including a fireplace and a fireplace. Upstairs, there has traditionally been a library around the chimney.

The heart of the house is considered to be a peculiar garden, where there is always abundant vegetation.

The ground floor of the villa is known as a bright living area and the middle floor as a sleeping area. Upstairs next to the library has been a good place for a quiet study.

The bay windows of the villa overlook the idyllic lawn, the current tennis club. Merikin glances at the landscape.

The archives of Kulosaarelaiset magazine, Kulosaari – home and part of the city (2001), edited by Minna Sarantola-Wass, Laura Kolben’s Kulosaari book (1988) and Matti Räsänen’s book about the owners of Kulosaari villas (2004) have been used as sources.