Home Former pupils of the girls’ normal lyceum visited their old school News 05 / 11 / 26 Former pupils of the girls’ normal lyceum visited their old school Former pupils of the girls’ normal lyceum visited the renovated Helsingin aikuisopisto building The red brick castle at Runeberginkatu 22–24 was once home to a school whose deep-rooted history goes back to the era of Tsar Alexander II. The Finnish Girls’ School in Helsinki was founded in 1869 to provide higher education for women in Finnish, as the school’s founders wrote to the Tsar. The ladies’ school of Godenhjelm and his wife, as it was called, first operated in several wooden houses until it moved into its own building on the corner of Bulevardi and Yrjönkatu for the years 1884–1923. In the early 20th century, equality between girls and boys was emphasised in the reports of the National Board of Schools, and the girls’ school was turned into a girls’ lyceum, which also made it possible for girls to go on to university. The many stages of the school building over the years At her class’s jubilee celebration in 1971, Maine Wartiovaara recalled how the schoolgirls moved into their new school on Runeberginkatu in 1924. “Those of us from Kaivopuisto walked there or took the yellow tram to the Museokatu stop. Our school building stood alone in the middle of wide fields of potatoes and burdock. From the empty, uninhabited Töölö, the view was straight out to the sea.” On 15 September, a large group of women who had been pupils at the girls’ normal lyceum in the 1940s to 1960s gathered in the handsome main hall, decorated with pilasters, of the school building now home to Helsingin aikuisopisto. Artist Hilkka Toivola’s triptych (pictured) still depicts the human life cycle from youth to middle age and old age. The motto written on the wall, which proclaimed that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, was wiped away long ago. In May 1969, the last graduation celebration of the hundred-year-old girls’ normal lyceum was held in the same main hall. “Thank you, old school building, even though you are cramped and uncomfortable, even though your walls are scarred and your corridors run-down, we thank you for the sense of security you have given us over the years,” said Principal Inkeri Simola. The building had become too small for more than 900 pupils, and the school moved via Etelä-Haaga to Latokaski, where it still operates today as the Viikki Teacher Training School of the University of Helsinki. The school building passed to the business students. The Helsinki School of Economics named the building Chydenia, and extensive, merciless alterations in the spirit of the time were carried out there. Ritva Saksi, who graduated from the girls’ normal lyceum in spring 1958, recalls: “The next time I visited the building was at the school’s 110th anniversary celebration in 1979. It was a great shock that the interior of the magnificent school building had been destroyed. The ceilings had been lowered and the large classrooms divided into small workrooms with cardboard-like walls,” she described. The Chydenia era ended, and the building designed by Onni Tarjanne returned to its original purpose as the home of Helsingin aikuisopisto in 2020, when the major renovation of the building was completed. The building has now been fully renovated into a modern adult education centre, respecting the old architecture, and hundreds of course participants visit it every day. Morning assemblies and class photos Let us return to the former pupils in the main hall. The weighty words spoken by Yrjö Koskinen at the school’s founding celebration in 1869 have carried far into the future. “From shared experiences arise friendship and a civilising joy of life,” Koskinen said 152 years ago. You can imagine his voice echoing in the main hall, where the school’s former pupils have gathered for their annual meeting. For them, the main hall brings back nostalgic memories. At the morning assemblies every day for nine years, they sang hymns and spiritual songs standing up. In the old days, there were benches for the weak on both sides of the lectern in the main hall, and those sitting on them were certainly given strange looks. “People applied to the grammar school, and only the best were selected,” writes Laura Kolbe, pupil number 7395, describing how Principal Inkeri Simola stood outside in front of the sturdy door and solemnly read out the names of those who had been accepted. “My name on Simola’s lips guaranteed entry to school heaven,” Kolbe says in the book Tytöt portaissa (Girls on the stairs), published by Hesteo, the association of former pupils of the first girls’ school in Helsinki. The association turns 74 in December. The former pupils group together for a photo in exactly the same place where their class photos were once taken. With astonishing efficiency, the women arrange themselves into a perfect formation in a flash. “Each of us knew very well what to do and how to stand. And then eyes towards the camera and smile,” says Anneli Nordlund. She describes the renovated interior of the school as beautiful, clean and stylish. “It was a joy to see with my own eyes the changes made with such respect. The classrooms and special rooms, such as the gyms, have been furnished invitingly. The tall windows are as they were in our time, more than 50 years ago in 1940–69,” Nordlund says. The school building’s handsome staircase, which ends under the vaulted arch of the top floor, became familiar to the girls as they ran up and down it during breaks. “The columns and arched vaults of the main staircase are like something from antiquity. The older the classes, the higher the floors they moved up to. Climbing the stairs was really useful everyday exercise in addition to gym and outdoor games lessons. We stayed alert and in good shape,” Nordlund emphasises. According to Nordlund, the most exciting and unusual of the stairs was the stone spiral staircase on the outer wall, which led from the changing rooms to the lower and upper gyms. “In winter, they were freezing cold, and we scurried up them really fast. After a sweaty gym lesson, the chill of the staircase was strangely good at cooling down our hot skin,” Nordlund recalls. “The staircase where Aaro Hellaakoski tried to speed us up by gently tapping us with a book was not as solid as I remembered,” Marja Tiitinen points out. “After the annual meeting in the main hall, I met a young woman from Africa in the corridor, dressed in her best clothes, who told me she was nervous about the Swedish exams that were about to start. The school is carrying out its task again,” Marja Tiitinen says happily. In addition to adult education courses, Helsingin aikuisopisto also provides basic education for adult immigrants. “It is wonderful that our dear old school is still an educational institution and serves education in many ways. The staircase I love was just as it used to be. During our school days, it was lovely to run up and down the stairs, and I always volunteered to carry the class register when the class was split between different floors. Some of our secret hiding places, for example in the gym, have disappeared, but they will always be in our memories,” says Kristina Kahlas-Capodistrias, a pupil in 1955–64. Lena Krochin, who graduated in 1957, thanks everyone for the wonderful visit to her former school building. “It was great to see that openings had been made in the stone wall of the yard to make it easier to get through. Inside the school was a world of its own, where I spent nine school years under the supervision of a strictly authoritarian teaching staff. Now the building is full of new technology, but its basic look has been carefully preserved. It is great that the magnificent building has now been preserved, in keeping with the spirit of the times, as a place of learning open to everyone,” Lena Krochin says. A successful renovation “As we explored the premises of Helsingin aikuisopisto, we could see that the renovation has rediscovered much of the old lost atmosphere in the colours and especially in the staircase. We can easily imagine climbing the same stairs as 60 years ago. Although the premises have been respectfully altered, you can still recognise the place. Memories flooded into my mind of the morning prayers in the main hall, the spring and Christmas celebrations, the concerts of the school’s own choir, the crimson of the final-year students’ last-day celebrations and the parties of the temperance society. In the lower lobby, under the wall clock, the caretaker would hurry the last pupils along in the mornings so that they would get to class before the bell rang,” Ritva Saksi recalls. “I remember well how the school’s cleaners came when school was over, opened the windows and started working hard. What a joy it was to come to a school that smelt clean in the mornings. We were at the mercy of our teachers in many ways, but we learnt a lot and grew into strong women who learnt to trust in their own strength. The school also built our team spirit, and my class still meets for lunch three times a year. Despite the coronavirus, ten of us aged over 80 met in August to catch up,” Ritva Saksi says. The former pupils vividly remember the smells of the gyms and the aroma of the home economics classroom. Exercise is still strongly present in the course selection at Helsingin aikuisopisto today. Circuit training and Gyrokinesis, among others, represent modern forms of exercise. “I always feel great tenderness for the school when I hear the song about the road to school and the scent of lilacs that we sang at the spring celebrations. Its lovely melody always echoes in my mind,” Marja Tiitinen says. Töölöläinen newspaper, 7 November 2021 Text and photos: Sakari Soininen Previous Next
