03.12.10 – One of the most widely recognized landmarks in the city of Helsinki is the train station. Standing on either side of the main entrance are pairs of statues holding lighted globes. As with the rest of the station, “The Stone Men” are made of Finnish granite. I thought I might be able to google some interesting stories about these iconic guys but no such luck. The only thing I found was that the Finnish Railway, VR, is using animated characters of the “men” in a recent advertising campaign. They even went so far as creating a rap song allegedly sung by Kivimiehet (“The stone men”). I better find that one!
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Tom, when you dig deeper, I recommend visiting Hvitrask, the beautiful home and studio of Eliel Saarinen and another Finnish architect, Geselius. It is located about 20minutes outside of Helsinki in Kirkkonummi. You’ll sure find lots of great photo opportunities there AND “interesting stories” about the architects. Among other things they swapped wives shortly after moving in…
Anyways, it’s stunning during winter as well.
Here some images:
http://www.google.fi/images?hl=fi&expIds=17259,18168,28062,28066,28104&xhr=t&q=hvitträsk&cp=2&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=RSIETYvtCMrLswas35noCQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=3&sqi=2&ved=0CDgQsAQwAg&biw=1146&bih=619
Designer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Wikstr%C3%B6m
Statues:
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyhdynkantajat
I think I’ll have to dig a bit deeper. These guys are so popular, everyone seems to love them.
I love these guys. I have dozens of photos of them.
I love the stonemen! props to Eliel Saarinen!
I like these photos a lot. Hard to believe there isn’t some kind of story about these statues. But, I guess sometimes a couple of huge stone guys holding lamps is just a couple of huge stone guys holding lamps : )
Well, sometimes people make fun of them… like in this amusement park. 🙂 And the station itself (I dunno if that includes the stone men) was designed by the architect Eliel Saarinen – his son Eero Saarinen designed the St. Louis Arch, and I’m from St. Louis, so I find that nice! ^^
How interesting is this!!!! Great comment!
Try translating this article and you’ll be sure to get more information about those stone guys:
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmen_sep%C3%A4n_patsas
Hey Mikko, the article is about the blacksmiths, not the stone men or maybe they are related. I’ll do a post on the blacksmiths soon. The link you sent taught me something about them.