FINLAND'S IRON WORKING HERITAGE

Author(s): J. M. Richards
Source: AA Files, No. 12 (Summer 1986), pp. 41-45
Published by: Architectural Association School of Architecture
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29543516
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FINLAND'S

IRONWORKING
HERITAGE
J.M. Richards

/.Aerial

view of the iron-working

estate at Mttstio.

The production of iron in Finland, which began on an

industrial scale early in the seventeenth century, flourished
especially in the eighteenth when over fifty ironworks were
established in rural areas. They took the form of self-contained
estates, each equipped with a central building which was also the
home of the ironmaster, various industrial buildings such as hammer

mills, foundries and blast-furnaces, and a workers' village. The last,

a
basically a streetof one-storey houses, also had a church, school and
in some instances a village shop. There was usually a small farm
serving the needs of the village.
The most important ironworking estates were sited in the extreme
south-west of Finland in the province ofUusimaa. Several survive in a
a revealing illustration of the social
fairlycomplete form and provide

history of their time and of the characteristic landscapes they created.

A few, for example those at Fiskars and Billn?s, near the sea-coast on
either side of the road fromHelsinki to Hanko, still produce iron.
One of themost accessible, at Fagervik close by, right on the coast,
stillwith itsvillage, itschurch and itsgreat house, isnow the centre of
a flourishing agricultural estate. In others the houses that lay at their
centre survive as country residences or the headquarters of industrial
or agricultural enterprises.

Most of the estates were sited in forested country for the sake of
the charcoal required for their furnaces, and close to fast-running
water, the source of their energy. They were within reach of the coast
because the iron-ore they used was transported by sea from Sweden.
In earlier centuries small quantities of iron for domestic use had been
manufactured from local ore, obtained from lakes or wetlands, but
this activity was superseded by the discovery in the seventeenth cen?
tury of vast ore deposits in Sweden and by the development of
the blast-furnace. By the end of that century Sweden was the biggest
producer of iron inEurope.
The first industrial plant of any kind inFinland was the ironworks
atMustio on the Karjaa river, in the same south-western area as the
three somewhat later estates already named and at a point where three
sets of rapids furnished exceptional water-power. The Mustio works
were founded in 1618by a decree of King Gustavus 11
Adolphus of
soon
from
but
into
the hands of
Sweden,
they
passed
royal ownership

successive merchants fromTurku, the Finnish capital, and itwas in

their time that iron-ore began to be shipped from Sweden and the fin?
ishedproducts exported there.The works thereaftersteadily expanded
to become a large estate (Fig. 1).They had their ups and downs ? for
example a shortage of charcoal which caused the blast-furnace to be

AAHl.KS 12

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2. The centralbuildingatMustioy 1783,byC.F.Schr?derandErik Palmstedt.

closed temporarily in 1698? but they flourished especially under the
ownership of the Linder family from the mid-eighteenth century
until the production of bar-iron came to an end in 1900.
Itwas Magnus Linder who in 1783 commissioned the pedimented
central building (Fig. 2) which still stands. It is an indication of the
important place that the iron industry held in the Finnish economy
that at this time leading architects were engaged to design its build?
ings. The central building at Mustio was by Christoffer Friedrich

Schr?der, a German-born architect who practised in Turku, and it

was remodelled soon afterwards by Erik Palmstedt, city architect of
Stockholm. It is built all of timber and was one of the handsomest
residences in the country, with a long pilastered facade and rich
interior furnishings. In the great salon are wall-paintings of Roman
scenes by Louis Jean Desprez which commemorate a visit by King
Gustavus. Desprez, as well as being the king's architect, was his
appointed stage-painter. The central building atMustio is enclosed by
the curve of the river.Nearby are stables and other outhouses and a
slender bridge. To thewest are aGothic-style gatehouse and a church
of 1757. In this instance there are only slight remains of the original
industrial buildings and of theworkers' housing laid out in the early
nineteenth century. The other buildings seen in the aerial photograph
were added later by the industrial company which now owns the
whole

estate.

Mustio was too far from the sea to be ideal for the necessary com?
munication with Sweden, and later in the seventeenth century three
important ironworks surrounded by similar estateswere established
a little further south. These were the estates of Billn?s, Fiskars
and Fagervik already referred to. The founder of all three was the
German-Swedish merchant Carl Billsten, who was responsible for a

considerable expansion of the ironmaking industry, especially in the

i68oswhen government help was offered to develop it.As a result, by
the beginning of the eighteenth century therewere fifteen ironworks
in Finland, eight of which
incorporated blast-furnaces. Annual
was
a
tons? small compared with
about
thousand
only
production
?
but it established Finland as an industrial
Sweden's production
country.

After being temporarily eclipsed during the Swedish King Charles

xn's wars against Russia, several of its installations including those at
Fagervik being destroyed in the fighting, the ironworking industry
continued to expand, again with the help of prominent Swedish
merchants. Among thesewere the brothers Hising ? JohanWilhelm
and Michael ? who in 1723 acquired the Billn?s and Fagervik works
from theBillsten family, togetherwith a blast-furnace on the sea-coast
at Skogby which theBillstens had built in 1686.This isone of the few

old blast-furnaces operating inFinland today.

Fagervik had an ideal situation, near the sea and on a fast-running
river. Under the management ofMichael Hising's son Johan, who
took over in 1758, the works entered their period of greatest pros?
perity. The blast-furnace was rebuilt and new types of hammer

installed, and in 1780 a brick-built tin-plating workshop was added.

This isone of a number of old buildings still surviving at Fagervik. It
was JohanHising, too,who built themain building (Fig. 3), forwhich
again the architect was Schr?der of Turku. The two-storey buildings
flanking the approach to themain block, one right on the lake shore,
were constructed first, in 1762; then the three-storeymain block with
its central pediment in 1772.As atMustio, there is aGustavus m room
inwhich the king stayed overnight in 1775; also a Chinese cabinet and
a library.

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3. The centralbuildingatFagervik, 1772,byC. F. Schr?der.

4. left: The churchand bell-tower(1737, byJ.F.Schultz)atFagervik,with thecentralbuildingbeyond,right: The bell-towerbeside thelake.

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Itwas at this time that the Finnish ironworks began their trans?
formation into large landed estates with spacious parks surrounding
the lakes that were created by damming to ensure for each its
necessary head of water. Johan Hising regarded himself as a landed
proprietor as well as an industrialist, and at Fagervik he laid out
gardens and planted specimens of rare trees.He built a vinery and
hothouses inwhich he grew lemons and oranges. He extended the
to form a fashionably romantic landscape.
existing woodlands
a
the
woods
Chinese
Among
pavilion still survives.
The Fagervik estate is approached from the public road by a lane
through woods, which soon becomes a village street linedwith iron?
workers' cottages, timber built and shingle roofed. A corner of one of
these cottages can be seen inFig. 4, which shows the village church at
the end of the lanewhere it emerges at the lake-shore, beyond which
stands the great house. The church, designed by Johan Friedrich
Schulz, was built in 1737 and, like nearly every village church in
Finland, has a separate bell-tower. Again, both church and tower are
wholly of timber on rough field-stone foundations, and a stone lower
storey in the case of the bell-tower. A walled graveyard contains the
proprietors' family tomb. The iron-making buildings that survive,
togetherwith the bar-iron hammer and hearths, are in a poor state of

5. Billn?s:

preservation. Production stopped in 1902.

The Billn?s estate at Pinjainen close by, beside a twenty-foot
waterfall on theKarjaa river,passed, like theFagervik estate, from the
Billsten to theHising family,who managed it until 1898. It became
well known for the mass production of tools, especially axes and
spades, and later for office furniture after it had become part of a
larger industrial enterprise owned by a company based on the Fiskars
works. At Billn?s a few of the early iron-making buildings survive,
togetherwith a streetof eighteenth-century workers' cottages (Fig. 5),
not unlike those at Fagervik but with tiled roofs. The central build?
ing,designed by Sebastian Gripenberg, was burnt down in 1915.
Fiskars, in contrast, the only one of the old Finnish iron-working
estateswhere the production of iron is itsmain activity today, retains
a number of old buildings of various dates but mostly of the early
nineteenth century. They include an ambitious brick-built stable
building of 1826 (Fig. 6) with a gabled central block crowned by a
clock-turret, a building (1828) by the most famous of all Finnish

The street of ironworkers'houses.

architects, theGerman-born Carl Ludwig Engel, a school and some

workers' houses, all strung along the ironworks road. The present
main residential building is later than those described above, having
been built in 1816by the then owner, Ludwig Bj?rkman, to replace a
central building of 1765which isnow themanager's office. Bj?rkman
first commissioned the architect Pehr Granstedt, but being dissatis?
fiedwith his drawings he turned toCarlo Francesco Bassi, the Italian
born architect, Swedish trained,who became city architect of Turku
and later, under the Russians, Controller of Public Works for the
whole Grand Duchy of Finland ? a post inwhich Engel later suc?
ceeded him. Bassi's mansion is in the neo-classical style that he and
Engel introduced into Finland. Bj?rkman commissioned Engel to add
flanking buildings to the main block on the same lines as those at
Fagervik, but thesewere never built.

ironworks, which suffered more than most in the

fightingduring Charles xn's wars, was laid out afresh in the 1760s and
was notable for producing copper as well as iron; indeed,
during its
ownership by theBj?rkman family, copper became itsmain product.
By the end of the eighteenth century the family had become the
proprietors of iron and copper mines and workshops in several parts
of Finland. Then in 1808war came again, resulting in the Russian
conquest of Finland. This, surprisingly, had little effecton the iron
making industry. Iron-ore arid pit-iron continued to be brought in
from Sweden, and the Russian authorities in control of the new
Grand Duchy of Finland, which had been given autonomous status
The Fiskars

6.Fiskars:Stahlebuildingof1826.

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AA

FILES 12

;i

nHHw*^

ill ill
RHI^^H

7. The centralbuildingatOrisberg, 1804,byI.Holm.

within the Russian Empire, encouraged the industry and even
established new ironworks in the eastern part of the country, using
local ore obtained from lakes.
The employment of themost eminent architects to design buildings
in the Finnish ironworking estates reflects the great prestige that
attached to the industry from the beginning. Their work is by no
means limited toMustio, Fiskars and the other estates just described.
In others of the old estates where ironworking activities have long

ceased the central ironmaster's building survives; in fact, several of

the architecturally most notable country houses in Finland were
estates. An example isOrisberg
originally the centre of ironworking
to
the
far
the
north
of
region inwhich most of the iron?
(Fig. 7),
near
were
It
is
the west coast in the province of
clustered.
works
not
the
far
from
Ostrobothnia,
sea-port town of Vaasa. Though now
removed from any industry, it stands beside its lake in a thickly
wooded park. Nearby, also on the shore of the lake, are a classical
an old water-mill. The mansion was built in 1804,
pavilion and
to
the design of a Swedish architect, I.Holm, still in the style
probably
ofGustavus in although by then the neo-classical stylewas beginning
to establish itself in the capital.
The Orisberg ironworks are interesting historically because their
foundation in 1688was an attempt to free the Finnish iron industry
from dependence on Swedish ore, following the discovery of iron-ore
was taken by officials of the
deposits in this province. The initiative
was
not
started
until theywere joined
port of Vaasa, but production
a
a
by the Stockholm merchant Anders Onckel and blast-furnace and
near
was
were
the
until
the
end
of
built. It
bar-hammer
not, however,
to flourish, because the local
eighteenth century that theworks began
ore proved inadequate and the blast-furnace was closed and pig-iron
in 1783 theOrisberg works and
brought in from Sweden. However,
were
estate
the house and
acquired by the Bj?rkman family, and
was
not restarted the workshops were
although the blast-furnace
on
the Bj?rkman blast-furnace and hammer-mills
rebuilt, depending
at Kimo, even furthernorth but nearer the sea. These were then the
most modern inFinland.
Itwas Bengt Magnus Bj?rkman and his son Lars Magnus who built
the house that stands there now. He was a proprietor with the same

sense of social responsibility as those who controlled themany iron?

works inUusimaa. He built a church (designed forhim in 1832by Carl
a school and the usual workers' housing. Iron manu
Ludwig Engel),
AA FILES

12

8. Noormarkku:

Proprietor's

residence,

1877, by E. Lagerspetz.

facture ceased in 1900. The mansion with the estate surrounding it is

now an agricultural college.
Further down thewest coast, near the seaport town of Pori in the
province of Satakunta, stands an especially interesting nineteenth
one of the last
century ironworking estate. This isNoormarkku,
ironworks to be founded under the Swedish regime. It began in 1806 as
a bar-iron works, relying on pig-iron from Sweden since it had
no blast-furnace. It was acquired in 1870 by the industrialist Antti
Ahlstr?m, who added sawmilling to the enterprise and built up from
this beginning one of the largest industrial empires in Finland,

estate
operating in many parts of the country. The Noormarkku
is now mostly agricultural, but many of the early buildings survive.
Most notable are a succession of large houses, built in the tradition of
the central buildings fromwhich the earlier ironworks were run and
providing homes for different generations of the Ahlstr?m family.

The oldest (Fig. 8),built in 1877forAnttiAhlstr?mhimselfby the

architect Evert Lagerspetz, is a striking example of the ornate timber
architecture of the period, with gabled front and corner turret. Its
style of embellishment, derived from the invention and ingenuity
that had become characteristic of the carpenter's trade, is the same
style thatwas once employed in town architecture all over Finland,
examples ofwhich have been fastdisappearing in recent years.

Happily, the tradition represented in all these Finnish ironworks

of engaging themost eminent architects to design the administrators'
mansions persisted after the iron-making industry had declined ?
persists in fact almost to this day. At Billn?s (see above) a new
mansion was built in 1917 to replace the one that had been burnt
down, and the architectwas Lars Sonck, the leaderwith Eliel Saarinen
of the Romantic Nationalist school which put new life into Finnish

architecture from 1900 onwards. Then in 1939 still another mansion

was built on the estate atNoormarkku:
the Villa Mairea, the most
celebrated house by the architect Alvar Aalto, who designed it for
Antti Ahlstr?m's

grand-daughter.

above account is based on the author's own researches in Finland, but he is greatly
indebted formany historical facts and figures toMr Asko Salokorpi of theMuseum of
Finnish Architecture at Helsinki. Mr Salokorpi was responsible for an exhibition on
in 1979.and wrote the excellent catalogue, published,
this subject held at theMuseum
however, only inFinnish.
are by courtesy of the
Figs. 4 (right), 7 and 8 are by the author. The remainder

The

Museum

of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki.

45

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