HS Turku | Top-quality designer lamps hang in an abandoned building: “Let’s take it back”

Raison The Harkko building, which received a demolition verdict from the city council on Monday, has a work by a respected Finnish lighting designer SpongeBob Tynellin (1890-1973) lamps.

After the wars, Tynell has designed, for example, a lamp for the UN Secretary General’s room in New York. In recent years, collectors have paid up to hundreds of thousands of euros for some Tynell lamps.

Ingot the lamps are supposed to be saved before the building is demolished, says Raisio museum Harko’s museum director Heli Isolehto.

Harkko was completed as Raisio’s municipal hall in 1954. According to Isolehto, Tynell designed his lighting specifically for the municipal hall.

Later, Raisio museum Harkko and Raisio theater have been used in the building. In recent years, the building has been empty due to indoor air problems.

Originally There were Tynell lamps in the council hall on the second floor. When the building was transformed into a museum and cultural center, some of the lamps were kept and some were installed in Harko’s staircase.

“The decision to dismantle Harko has now apparently come. Before dismantling, the lamps will be taken to safety,” says museum director Isolehto.

Isolehto does not try to define the monetary value of Tynell’s lamps.

“They primarily have a cultural-historical and aesthetic value for us. The lamps have been placed in that building, and placing them for further use is more of a challenge, but they will certainly be preserved so that they don’t disappear anywhere.”

In the mold is also Hilkka Toivolan (1909–2002) mural from 1964. Toivola was a Finnish painter and director of the Turku Art Association from 1969–1973.

“The work that was on the wall of Hilkka Toivola’s council hall has been prepared to be cleaned and moved. It is made on canvas, and with the conservator we have already looked at how to remove it.”