© Mika Lappalainen, Helsinki City Material Bank

Rug washers have always aroused great interest among tourists. Many sightseeing buses slow down or even stop at them, and enthusiastic foreigners have taken innumerable photos of the piers and rug washers to show to the people at home.

The exhibition presents architecture students’ ideas for new uses for rug washing piers. Rug washing piers are part of a vanishing city culture in Helsinki. Due to water pollution, rugs should no longer be washed in the sea and the maintenance of the piers has ended. The traditional washing sites are in danger of disappearing from the cityscape. There are a total of 14 rug washing piers in Helsinki.

First-year students in the department of architecture at Aalto University were asked to come up with future uses for the piers or the areas around them.

© Risto Ala-aho

The exhibition presents about fifty course work ideas. The students’ piers are used for marriage ceremonies, cloud watching and kick-boxing.The students could freely select which of the twelve piers they would use for the activities.

The practice assignment is part of a more extensive project for enlivening the rug washing piers, an idea that came up in the City Planning Department’s ideas competition for projects for the World Design Capital year 2012.

Exhibition is open in Laituri 5.-19.3.2011
Tue-Fri 10-18 and Sat 12-16, admission free
Laituri, Narinkka 2, Kamppi
tel. +358 (0)9 310 37390