Serpentine House ( fi, Käärmetalo, sv, Ormhuset) is a

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

apartment building complex on Mäkelänkatu in the

Käpylä Käpylä (; sv, Kottby) is a neighbourhood of Helsinki with 7,600 inhabitants. Administratively speaking, Käpylä is a part of the Vanhakaupunki district. It is located between Kumpula, Oulunkylä and Koskela. Käpylä has a terminus for rou ...

district of

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. The complex was designed by

Yrjö Lindegren Yrjö Lorenzo Lindegren (13 August 1900 – 12 November 1952) was a Finnish architect and Olympic Gold medallist. Lindegren was born in Tampere. He graduated as an architect in 1925 from the Helsinki University of Technology, and set up his o ...

and opened in 1952. It is owned by the City of Helsinki apartments company and comprises 189 rental apartments in two four-storey buildings. A two-storey service building houses a day-care center and a

swimming hall A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable swimming or other leisure activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built above ground (as ...

. The apartment buildings also include some commercial space. The complex gets its name from the twisty form of the buildings. The yard was designed by landscape architect Elisabeth Koch in 1953. It was last renovated in the 1980s preserving the essential characteristics of the original garden design. The City of Helsinki is in the process of protecting Serpentine House as of March 2014. Once the

zoning Zoning is a method of urban planning in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into areas called zones, each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a si ...

changes with the protection details have been approved, the badly deteriorated buildings will undergo extensive renovations. The apartments still include original furnishings (for instance in the kitchens) which will also be repaired. The renovation is expected to cost 28 million euros. The renovation of the first building was finished in May 2018 and it is now a lighter color closer to the original 1950s look. The renovation of the second building starts in the Fall 2018. Serpentine House is listed by

Docomomo Docomomo International (sometimes written as DoCoMoMo or simply Docomomo) is a non-profit organization whose full title is: International Committee for Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sites and Neighbourhoods of the Modern Movement. ...

as a significant example of modern architecture in Finland. Finland's

National Board of Antiquities The Finnish Heritage Agency ( fi, Museovirasto, sv, Museiverket), previously known in English as the National Board of Antiquities, preserves Finland's material cultural heritage: collects, studies and distributes knowledge of it. The agency is a ...

has also listed it as a nationally significant built cultural environment together with Käpylä's wooden house districts.

References

External links

* {{coord, 60.212041, N, 24.943063, E, region:FI-18_type:landmark, display=title Buildings and structures in Helsinki Residential buildings completed in 1952 Modernist architecture in Finland Yrjö Lindegren buildings