What to do in Helsinki: the craft city guide
The Crafts magazine team shares its highlights from Finland’s capital city and its surrounds
Explore our crafted guide of what not to miss while visiting Helsinki – including the best museums, independent shops, and places to eat in the city.
Visit
Offering far more than books alone, Oodi – Helsinki's Central Library – boasts a freely accessible makerspace with sewing machines, screenprinting facilities, musical instrument hire, and even 3D printers, making it the perfect place to pop in if you’re feeling creative. The boat-like building with its wooden façade and curving interior spaces is the brainchild of ALA Architects, who constructed the library in 2018.
Töölönlahdenkatu 4, 00100 Helsinki
The Design Museum houses over 75,000 Finnish design objects in a grand 1890s school building in central Helsinki; its treasures are on show both at home and in touring exhibitions abroad. Current exhibitions include Design for Everybody (until 2 October), which explores how Finland’s designers have – or haven’t – promoted equality.
Korkeavuorenkatu 23, 00130 Helsinki
The Espoo Museum of Modern Art – better known as EMMA – is a sprawling space just outside Helsinki. As Finland’s largest art museum, it hosts a rich schedule of exhibitions and events. Current shows include Chiharu Shiota: Tracing Boundaries, an immersive installation of densely criss-crossed yarn. Look out for the permanent display of ceramics and glass made or collected by design legends Tapio Wirkkala and Rut Bryk.
WeeGee Exhibition Centre, Ahertajantie 5, Tapiola, Espoo
This unusual museum located in the WeeGee Exhibition Centre (next door to EMMA) puts all things timekeeping in focus. The collection includes about 6000 watches from the 17th century onwards, as well as a plethora of watchmaking tools and materials.
Ahertajantie 3 Tapiola, Espoo
Fiskars is a unique craft community of 600-odd creatives working in every discipline imaginable, invited by the Fiskars company to bring a 1650s ghost town back to life. It’s hidden among dense forests, but is just one hour’s drive from Helsinki. We recommend a summer visit so that in-between visits to studios, boutiques and exhibitions, you can enjoy chilly dips in one of the many lakes – if you’re lucky, you might even spot a moose.
Every two years, the tiny town is transformed by an ambitious arts festival. This year’s Fiskars Village Art & Design Biennale highlights include U-JOINTS: Knots & Knits, an exhibition unravelling the history of textiles, fabrics and ropes. Catch the 2022 Biennale until 4 September.
Peltorivi 1, Fiskars, Raasepori
Museum of Finnish Architecture
Architecture buffs: this one's for you. Visit the Museum of Finnish Architecture for a deep-dive into the country's building history, famed for the use of wood (perhaps unsurprisingly, given that forests cover over 75% of Finland even today). We also recommend a trip to Studio Aalto: the national icon Alvar Aalto's studio, located in the Munkkiniemi area of Helsinki.
Kasarmikatu 24, 00130 Helsinki
The wooden exterior of KWUM, a ceramics museum in Fiskars Village in Finland. Photo: courtesy KWUM The tiled stairwell at KWUM ceramics museum in Fiskars Village in Finland. Photo: courtesy KWUM
With a name that means ‘dream’ in Korean, KWUM ceramics museum is a dream come true for its founder, ceramic artist Karin Widnäs. Situated in a woodland clearing next to her home and workshop in Fiskars Village, the cube-shaped wood-clad museum – which features a stunning tile-clad spiral staircase – runs two exhibitions per year, often drawn from Widnäs’ own extensive collection.
Baklurantie 12, 10470 Fiskars
Located on the island of Seurasaari in western Helsinki and open only in the summer months, this outdoor museum will transport you to Finland's rural past. Its historic buildings – largely crafted from wood – show how life was lived in days gone by, featuring spaces for making vessels, sledges and barrels, among others. Look out for the giftshop, stocked with books on traditional handicrafts such as birchbark weaving, and check out its programme of making demonstrations and craft fairs.
Seurasaari, 00250 Helsinki
Shops
Artist-designers Aamu Song and Johan Olin, the brains behind Salakauppa (or ‘Secret Shop’), travel the world in search of hidden gems for their kiosk in central Helsinki. The duo focus on sourcing wonderfully inventive children’s toys, handmade by artisans worldwide – think whale-shaped Russian matryoshka dolls or hilariously surreal Mexican toys.
Postikatu 1, 00100 Helsinki
As the name suggests, Lokal – a shop and gallery in the heart of Helsinki – celebrates home-grown creativity, stocking beautifully made homewares and artworks made nearby. Look out for historic Finnish crafts such as birch-bark basketry, here given new life through contemporary designs.
Annankatu 9, 00120 Helsinki
Since 1975, the Artisaani craft and design shop has been stocking work by leading makers. Run by the Pro Artisaani group, today the store stocks pieces by over 50 craftspeople, spanning everything from jewellery to glass, ceramics to clothing.
Unioninkatu 28, 00100, Helsinki
Behind the scenes at Lapuan Kankurit's weaving mill in Lapua in Finland. Photo: courtesy Lapuan Kankurit Woven Jakala towels by Lapuan Kankurit. Photo: courtesy Lapuan Kankurit
Founded in 1917 in the South Ostrobothnian town of Lapua, Lapuan Kankurit – or ‘the Weavers of Lapua’ – is today run by the fourth generation of its founding family. Expect to find sustainable homeware made on the jacquard weaving mill at the brand’s Helsinki outlet; highlights include light, woven towels designed for that favourite Finnish pastime: the sauna.
Katariinankatu 2, 00170 Helsinki
Tikau describes its wares as items that ‘can be bought with good conscience’: something it achieves by working with the NGO Tikau Share to collaborate with 135 artisans based in either rural India or Finland. The result: beautifully considered and handmade clothes, furnishings, toys and accessories.
Korkeavuorenkatu 9, 00140 Helsinki
Fiskars Village boutiques
For a village of 600-odd people, there’s an embarrassment of riches to be found in the 34 shops and workshops selling work made within the creative community. Highlights include:
- Nikari: Founded in 1967 by master cabinetmaker Kari Virtanen, this furniture studio creates iconic designs with an unbeatable green edge: its wood is grown sustainably in Finland and handmade in a workshop hydroelectrically powered by the neighbouring stream.
- Fiskars Shop: This spacious store stocks homewares and tools made by Fiskars – of orange-handled scissors fame – in their nearby factory, alongside Finnish favourites such as Iittala glassware.
- ONOMA Shop: This outlet offers wares made by ONOMA: a co-operative of makers, designers and artists, all based in Fiskars.
- Desico Shop: A candle chandler offering a rainbow-hued selection of handmade candles next door to the workshop in which they are made.
A walkway at Helsinki's Pikku-Finlandia pavilion, designed by architect Jaakko Torvinen. Photo: courtesy the architect A corner of the Savoy Restaurant in Helsinki. Photo: Anton Sucksdorff, courtesy of the Savoy
Eat
If you’re after a special dining experience, you can’t do much better than the Savoy. The Helsinki restaurant boasts a beautiful plant-filled, wood-lined space designed in 1937 by Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto – and updated by Ilse Crawford and Studioilse in 2020. Fun fact: Aalto’s iconic wave-inspired glass vases – that Iittala still sells today – were originally created for the Savoy.
Eteläesplanadi 14, 00130 Helsinki
While Finlandia Hall is closed for renovations until 2024, its resident café has temporarily moved to Pikku-Finlandia (‘Little Finlandia) on the shores of Töölönlahti Bay: a spot so idyllic, it’s hard to believe you’re still in central Helsinki. Housed in a wooden pavilion built by architect Jaakko Torvinen using 95 trees – branches and all – as pillars, the café’s menu is a journey around Finland’s regional dishes and locally-sourced ingredients.
Karamzininranta 4, 00100 Helsinki
This family-run café in Fiskars’ Clock Tower building offers drinks, cakes and light lunches made using local produce – even their famous cinnamon rolls are baked with flour from a nearby wheat field. Dishes are served alongside a striking selection of antique handmade glassware and ceramics.
Clock Tower building, Fiskarsintie 22, 10470 Fiskars
If you prefer self-catering, you can’t do better than this tipi. Nestled in the forests by the Myllyjärvi lake, two kilometres from Fiskars Village, the tipi is in fact a wooden structure designed for cooking over an open fire – there’s an additional fire pit outside, and a rustic 50-seat dining hut nearby.
Lake Myllyjärvi, Fiskars
