Residential Building Architecture

Finland is known for modern architecture. Some of the best known architects include but are not limited to Alvar Aalto and Viljo Revell who was the chief designer of the Toronto City Hall. I'm not a huge fan of modernism personally but the fact is that it has had an impact on mass produced residential buildings. Traditional wooden building styles are another source of influence. The synthesis is often a mix of traditional and modern style.

The country most similar to Finland in the architectural style of modern residential buildings is Sweden, in my opinion. There are some differences in certain details when you compare residential areas of similar specs to the one I'll show you pictures of below.

This subdivision was built in the 2010's. It's somewhat more colourful than the average street. It contains a mix of wooden and stone buildings.

This one has got one hallmark of the 2010's and that is the horizontal laths in the fence near the front door. Notice the snow guards near the edge of the roof. Without them, you risk getting tons of snow on yourself as the snow melts in the spring. I'd classify this one as modernistic.

This one is probably designed by Kannustalo and based on traditional wooden houses.

If I were to take part in an experiment where I was blindfolded and flown to a suburb of similar age and specs in any other country - and if all street signs and car licence plates were removed, I'd have the most difficulty knowing whether I'm still if Finland if were dropped in Sweden. But some details would give away the fact that I was somewhere else. One such detail is the fact that it is much more common in Sweden for the wooden houses to have vertical sidings. Also, the distribution of color choices is a bit different.

I've been doing Google Maps Street View tourism, which is a great way to travel for free and without any risk of contracting any infectious diseases. :)

My general impression is that suburbs in Sweden look not too different but I could never mistake the average German or even Danish suburb for one in this country. It seems that bricks are a much more common building material simply because Denmark let alone German are so much more densely populated that timber would otherwise have to be imported.

I've taken a look at new suburbs in Canada where the climate is the similar. But it seems to me that some of the design choices must originate from Britain at least in the English speaking provinces.