"THE INTANGIBLE HERITAGE OF NORTHERN EUROPE"

Anna Nurmi-Nielsen

When considering intangible heritage from a northern European perspective, what first comes to mind is the oral tradition : the stories, the fairy tales, and the folklore. Besides this folk poetry, there are also our surviving nomads, the Lapps or Sámi people, who were the last to move from one site to another following the seasonal cycles. In addition to their reindeer herding areas they also had specific fishing locations and hunting grounds.

Just as for the Sámi, the life of other people living in the northern lands is still closely linked with our climatic and natural conditions. The ability to build warm houses was one of the indispensable skills needed by the people wanting to establish themselves permanently in these areas. Because of the abundance of building material available from the northern forests, most houses in Finland and the neighbouring areas were for around one thousand years wooden constructions using the same horizontal log-house technique or corner timbering (Blockbau). Almost everyone knew how to build a log house and had the skills needed by a potential settler. They moved out from the village to the forests, first building a small log cabin and a sauna, and subsequently adding further buildings according to their needs. And, of course, they also cleared new land for farming.

Log houses were also built in towns, giving rise to our very special wooden towns. Using the same corner timbering technique, the vernacular master builders were able to create large monumental buildings. They built a hundred wooden churches and belfries: the most complicated double cruciform churches were designed to have 24 corners so as to create more internal space.

Those people who possessed the basic skills were able to add new rooms to existing buildings, move houses from one location to another, rebuild them, change rotten timbers, or recycle used timbers to other buildings. Unless a town was devastated by a great fire, its houses or parts of them had a long life-span. However, windows, clapboarding, and other details would be renewed or replaced, sometimes in accordance with new architectural styles.

Until World War II, the corner timbering technique dominated in new buildings, both in the countryside and in the small towns. These skills still continued to be actively used for a long time. From my childhood in the 1960s I remember when my family had to move an old sauna a few hundred metres from its original site. No professional builders were employed for this. The only two men not having to work in the fields during summer were the miller and his son, who was a teacher. My mother, too, was free to help. As it was necessary to change some of the timbers in the lower part of the building, a local man had cut the wood during the previous winter, just a few metres from the new building site. The three managed to raise the building in a few weeks.

However, the situation changed very rapidly. With the beginning of the rationalisation of agriculture and accelerating urbanisation in the 1960s, the rural population began to decline. People moved from the countryside to the towns, creating a need for new houses and residential areas. At the same time the old building tradition died out and a series of new building techniques, materials, and styles succeeded each other. Many houses were built in brick or concrete, with a flat roof instead of the traditional pitched roof. Nevertheless, the idea of the self-built house did not disappear. All Finns still dream of owning their own house, built using their own hands. About 70 % of new single-family houses are built by the owners themselves, not by a construction company. However, although these people once possessed a thousand-year-old tradition of building log houses, they do not have much experience in the new techniques. Now many who would once have built for themselves encounter problems and realise that it is better to employ professionals.

The building tradition, based on the skills of corner timbering, was so strong that no one ever worried about its continuing existence. The building crafts are those intangible elements of heritage whose value is not yet appreciated. People did not expect these skills to disappear and have not yet been able to evaluate or understand what they have lost. New buildings replace old ones without any idea of continuity. Areas lose their architectural identity without having the time to acquire a new one. Most of today’s buildings were built in the last decades, and this trend continues. People continue to move from the rural areas to the major cities. The old traditional red-painted log buildings, typical of the Finnish landscape, now often lie empty. It will not take more than 20 years for them to disappear.

Recently, interest in the preservation of historic buildings has grown. However, the skills that were to be found widely a few decades ago have almost disappeared. Whilst the former generation was able to do it itself, the present generation needs experts to change logs in these buildings. To ensure a supply of experts for the future, training courses for young people interested in this old craft have to be organised. I believe we need these skills not only in restoring our historic buildings, but also in maintaining our own identity. Losing a thousand-year-old building tradition, along with the skills necessary to keep it alive, is like losing a language. Both are important not only for the local people, but also for the cultural diversity of the world. Without language you can not keep the oral tradition alive and without craft skills you can not maintain the built environment.

Anna Nurmi-Nielsen
President of ICOMOS Finland