Baywatch

Architectural Review, The, May, 1997

The Toolonranta Restaurant in Helsinki has been designed by Hyvamaki Karhunen Parkkinen Architects to exploit the beauty of the setting while impinging upon it as discreetly as possible.

Screened by trees, the restaurant has been built on the edge of the city's central park, near the Opera House, and faces east across Toolo Bay.

The site, in a well-loved public place, was sensitive; and so this is a low-lying structure backed into the slope. The surrounding greenery, stone walls and trellises form an essential part of the scheme and eventually the building will melt into the landscape of the park. Chameleon-like, the roof has been covered with turf, and the trellises underplanted with vines and creepers.

The plan, which traces the form of a truncated L, has a solid outer shell and transparent inner one. A tall skylight acts as a central spine dividing the building into two separate parts. Kitchen and service areas are disposed around the perimeter section of solid masonry, while the public spaces giving onto the bay restaurant, delicatessen, bar and cafe - are contained by a light structure like a summer pavilion of steel, glass and wood. Large glass walls primarily face, eastwards and enclose a courtyard open to the bay, the surrounding terrace and footpath. This sheltered space, shaded in summer by the projecting eaves of the building and by parasols, functions as an exterior room and stage for seasonal events.

The restaurant, cafe and bar together cater for about 220 people with summer terraces at present seating another 200, though there are plans to develop the terraces up to the shoreline. Inside, customers can watch the cooks at work in the open kitchens as is, it seems, the current fashion in modern restaurants nearly everywhere, from Finland to Australia.

The idea behind the interior design was to obviate the need to embellish, and to leave the structure, views and the kitchen activities to speak for themselves. Dark green steel columns and girders are reminiscent of old covered markets, austerely set against the warm texture of woodwork. Sloping roof beams are of waxed laminated timber and the skylight ceiling is composed of stained birch veneer. In order to keep the roof structure plain, air-conditioning shafts were placed beneath the floor.