French architect wants to make Finnish houses more ‘individual.’
Philippe Gelard
‘I don’t think there is much choice in Finland,’ laments architect Philippe Gelard. ‘When people want to build a new house they go to a catalogue where the houses mostly look very much the same and they choose a house.’
‘There is a lack of choice,’ continues the 31 year-old, originally from Rouen in Normandy. ‘They all follow this same model. Well, I want to build in a way that reflects the owner’s personality and point of view.’
For Philippe, each house should be ‘unique’ and should make a statement about who the owner is.
Though he didn’t build it, Philippe likes his own flat, in Rantakatu, because, ‘it is almost exactly square and this is a very comfortable space.’ It needs to be comfortable. It’s not only Philippe’s home but the office of his freelance architecture company.
Philippe launched ’Philippe G – French-Finnish Architect and Designer’ in September 2009 and is gradually building-up clients and projects.
‘I worked for an architect’s office in Ylivieska until May 2009,’ he recalls.
But he eventually decided that being self-employed was the way forward.
‘I am very fertile with ideas,’ he smiles, ‘but when you’re working for somebody else, maybe your ideas do not always fit in with the image that his office has.’
Philippe is full of praise for his last employer. ’His work was very good,’ he insists, ’but it was a bit conservative.’
Now, Philippe is trying to build-up a client base and a list of contacts. Having first come to the country in 2002, he speaks Finnish and has been impressed by the array of courses which the City has to offer to entrepreneurs.
‘It’s very good that whenever I have a question then there’s somebody to answer it!’ he enthuses.
Philippe is not exactly sure why he wanted to come to Finland. ‘I was finishing my architecture degree in France and I wanted to go abroad. And I didn’t want to go to Britain or Spain because they border France. I wanted to go somewhere a bit different!’
He took-up a place at Oulu University for a year before working for a company which involved living in rural Japan. ‘I had to drive for half an hour to find the nearest computer,’ he laughs.
After that, not sure what to do, he stayed with a friend in Poland for a while before deciding to return to Finland in 2003.
‘The boat was still in the water, coming into the harbour,’ he smiles, ‘and I switched my phone on and there was a text message offering me a job in Helsinki!’ It was from the company for which he had worked in Japan.
In 2005, he was offered a job in Oulu and made the move north.
Pakkahuoneenkatu (architect Kimmo Kuismanen)
The architect has contributed to building various structures in the city including the Caritas Building and flats at Pakkahuoneenkatu 21 but his real passion is designing houses.
‘Of course, getting an architect to design your house is a bit more expensive,’ he admits, ‘but you get a unique product that is worth more, it is an investment for the future and it will be better quality.’
Especially interested in ecological issues, Philippe’s houses try to make the most economical use possible of light and space. But in designing for Finns, he has noticed some clear cultural differences in how houses are put together.
‘It is a different way of living. In France, the main room is kept clean and this is where adults entertain. In Finland, children play in this room and often it borders the bedroom so there is less privacy. But, of course, for Finns being naked in front of other members of the family is less of a problem. The main room is always a large space.’
However, bedrooms also seem to function differently. ‘The bedrooms are very small,’ he comments. ‘Once you get in a bed and a table you can do almost nothing in a Finnish bedroom. In Finland, you can call a room a bedroom if it is at least seven metres square. In France, it must be at least nine metres square. That is a third bigger.’
The houses themselves are more obviously functional. ‘It’s all about functionality, about keeping the temperature high in winter. They had to build a lot of housing very quickly in the 1970s so many of the towns are the same. But it brings me joy that they are now renewing the old wooden houses. Of course, a lot of the pre-fab houses are in this kind of style.’
The conformity of these houses reflects, for Philippe, a conformity in Finnish culture.
‘They don’t seem to be trying to be unique,’ he suggests. ‘Maybe it holds society together but they are shy to be different. Then on the other hand there is a very strong sense of privacy. I’m not sure what it expresses.’
If Finns want a conformist house, he can provide it but what Philippe really wants to do is ‘bring new ways, new choices to Finnish people.The architect should be creative and innovative. Architecture benefits the whole society. If you build an elegant house, it also benefits your neighborhood. In that sense I wish to develop a higher quality architecture which remains available to all. Architecture is a social bond, but a bond of diversity rather than of uniformity.'
Finland is a country still looking for its style. Very few architects risk doing really new things.’Philippe has designed much of the furniture in his flat and he compares his architectural ‘humanist’ philosophy to tables in a café.
‘You can arrange the tables in such a way that everybody is on their own drinking coffee or you can arrange them so that people are forced to interact.’ For Philippe, your house should reflect the kind of character you are, ‘whether you want to interact or be on your own.’
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1. 07-02-2010 01:05
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