| Aims |
I went to Finland to:
- Study how they manage their woodlands and forests
- See if anything could be learned from their management techniques and timber applications that would be useful here in the UK
- See whether their traditional crafts play a role in modern life and how they are looked after, or encouraged
- See if there is anything to be learnt from their traditional skills which I could usefully apply in my work
- Study how new technologies may interact with traditional skills
- Study how they interact in the global market of timber production and useage
- Establish links for promoting skill-sharing between the Finnish and British practitioners
By undertaking this research, I wanted to enhance my understanding of international forestry and traditional carpentry skills, improve my competitiveness in selling my own products and forge training links on how traditional skills can usefully be applied in today’s world.
| Introduction |
Finland is the seventh largest country in Europe with a population of just over 5 million people. It is a similar size geograpically to Britain, but with less than 1/10th of the population. Finnish forestry accounts for 78% of the total land area. Their management of this single largest natural resource is highly sophisticated and profitable. Timber is a major export and provides a high proportion of the country’s income. Much of their timber is used for pre-fabricated timber-framed housing that is exported around the world. The remainder is largely used in the production of paper.
Legal protection of Finland’s forests was introduced soon after the country regained its independence from Russia in 1917. The Forestry Act of 1886 predated this, to curb the wasteful use of the forests. Later laws prohibited the devastation of forests and defended forest areas.
However, Finland has suffered environmental pollution like most other industrial nations. Forestry and timber processes cause damage to the environment. Planting, bog-draining for plantations, fertilising and felling have all had severe consequences, changing natural habitats and the balance of Finland’s water courses and overexploiting the soil.
In 1991, a Wilderness Act was brought into effect to defend the areas which remain in their natural state. Forestry in these areas is thus restricted and limited to “natural forestry” where operations are adapted to natural development. No extensive felling, no clearing and natural regeneration are the prime compononents.
Responsible forest management has been the government’s solution but, as the state owns only 27% of the forests, it has had to offer incentives for private owners to subscribe to the national plan. In 1998, a Forestry Certificate System was initiated. Overall, forestry has undergone extensive reforms to conform to EU and global requirements for better management.
After Finland joined the EU, the ill-fated Natura protection scheme soured relations between private landowners and the Ministry of Environment. Some landowners have been notorious for clear-felling forests next to a national park, and the programme sparked widespread protests and even more clear felling.
Finland has always maintained the principle of “jokameiehenoikeus”. This gives the right for anyone to roam at will and pick berries, wild fruits and mushrooms in the Finnish countryside. The right of common access and the greater use of the forests for recreation brings more problems: litter, different forms of pollution like the noise and emissions of too many vehicles.
Whilst afforestation and exploitation of the forests have spoiled some habitats, the trees are also threatened by air pollution, or acid rain. Like other countries, Finland has legal limits designed to control industrial emissions. There has been an environmental push for tighter controls, but industry argues for economically more realistic targets. However, “Green” policies have been part of Finnish life for some time and they have pioneered several designs using recycled materials.
The Finns have been exceptionally good at taking their natural resources and utilising them for design purposes. They have explored their potential as a raw and essentially functional material.
Amongst Finnish innovations from forestry-dervied products is Benecol, a margarine. This not only contains no cholesterol, but has been proved to decrease blood cholesterol levels by as much as 14% through the effect of the ingredient Stanolester which is a birch pulp extract. Birch is also the source of the sweetener Xylitol. This was pioneered in Finland in the late 1970s and is used to flavour chewing gum and confectionery. It is clinically proven to prevent tooth decay.
On a more intimate scale, the use of wood has been adapted with characteristic Finnish innovation to everyday functions. Alvar Aalto paved the way for furniture design, pioneering the “bentwood” technique in the 1930s, skilfully moulding birch into laminated fluid curls and curves. The wooden ornaments, everyday utensils and bowls in the Aarikka shops demonstrate the Finn’s versatility and sensitivity in using wood in a modern context.
| Seurasaari Open-Air Museum, Helsinki |
First, I visited this open-air museum which is situated on an island just outside Helsinki. I wanted to learn about their historical wooden building and crafts skills and how these have been preserved. The museum gave me a very impressive introduction to their wood culture and I saw a wide range of examples of how everything used to be made of wood.
The museum was founded in 1909 and contains 85 examples of vernacular architecture in the Nordic tradition of log construction. This was almost the sole technique of building until the middle of the 20th century. Evidence of corner-joining, or blockwork technique, dates back a thousand years, to the Iron Age.
The oldest building is Karuna church from 1686. Most of the other buildings are from the 18th and 19th centuries. There is a large and varied display of buildings: from the church boat-houses with long boats that whole villages would row across the lake to get to church in, to great manor houses, watermills, grain stores, stabling, summer houses and farmhouses with animal housing on the ground floor and domestic housing on the first floor.
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| Traditional farm house at Seurasaari Open Air Museum. |
The museum takes an active role in keeping these traditional buildings and techniques alive. They employ a team of dedicated carpenters to restore and maintain the buildings and furnishings.
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| A traditional grain store at Seurasaari |
These buildings were just so beautiful. The atmosphere within even the most modest structure was quite magical. The grander manor houses were furnished more formally. In one garden there was a simple big-wheel made from wood. The farm-houses were mainly arranged around a yard, the house on one side and the animal and equipment buildings surrounding the other three sides. Often the barns or granaries are two stories, the lower floor being storage and the upper being additional bedrooms for extra family members.
The island itself is heavily wooded and has public bathing and sauna facilities to the lake. There were numerous very tame red squirrels. There’s a large wooden restaurant, build from the timber that came down on that site in a storm over 100 years ago. There were large twin-facing wooden swing seats. This museum was my first experience of a culture that reveres forests and wood. Whilst these materials are fully exploited, there is also a very fundamental relationship with woods and forests that is almost sacred. This is illustrated in the national epic poem “Kullervo”, which is like a re-telling of the creation story and involves the forest as a backdrop.
The basic timber patterns used in the old rural buildings are still preserved in the structure of the log cabins and saunas that pepper the shorelines of the thousands of lakes. These are still the summer retreats for much of the population.
| The Lahti College of Arts and Crafts |
Lahti is one of the oldest regions for timber production and usage. It is about an hour and a half north-east of Helsinki. In the early 1900s it was Finland’s power-house for the selling and making of furniture and the selling of round-wood timber.
I met with Marko Varjos at the Lahti College of Arts and Crafts. Marko is a Master Cabinet-Maker. He was a gold-medal winner in cabinet-making at the World Craft Fair. He supervises the cabinet-making course at the college. He is also the lead trainer for the Finnish cabinet-making team which does all its preparation at this college.
The students are on a three year course to get their basic accreditation as a cabinet-maker. In their second and third years, they spend 20 weeks of the year within a local wood business, cabinet-making or building. Many of the students’ grand-parents and relations worked in timber, or carpentry.
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| Traditional Finnish rocking chair |
Half of the wood-working students are female. Most students start at 16, but they take on older students and students from a wider area. Some come from the poorer regions of Europe like Slovakia, who have old craft history and want to up-date their traditional skills. They also have links with students in Korea and Japan.
The college is independently funded from the local government. There was a big recession in the 1990s in Finland and the forestry sector was hit really hard. The local area wanted to regenerate itself and instead of engaging outside organisations, they concentrated on building up their own training and businesses. They source their timber from small local forests and saw mills.
All their facilities were top of the range and they embrace technology, taking great pride in this. The Finnish equivalent of Ikea is based in Lahti. They donate a lot of equipment and machinery to the college.
The course gives students a broad general training. Their theory is for the student to make as many mistakes as possible and to teach them in a safe environment. Later they can choose to focus on furniture, or construction. After three years, students can go on and do a two-year Masters degree where they design and produce their own products. This offers so much more scope than the original carpentry course I did which focused only on industrial construction.
Apart from the high quality of the work produced, I was most impressed by the fact they are teaching the students to be entrepreneurs alongside the carpentry skills they are learning. The course emphasises the business skills needed to run a carpentry workshop, or timber business. The students also learn many of the life skills of how to operate in a big company, or how to run their own business. It is run hand-in-hand with language courses and traditional maths and how these can be applied in the managing of a carpentry business.
The students are encouraged to sell the work they make whilst at college and they have recently designed a new work bench that is selling widely. The Finnish people are eager to buy locally produced wood products which means there’s a strong home market for their products.
A lot of Ikea furniture is produced in Finland because of the quality of their making and the speed with which they can do it. Many of the students go on to design and make there. Ikea is now moving production to China, but Finland remains very competitive because of the high standards of production and efficiency.
The traditional skills of the older generation have been dying out. Some appreciation of their work is being picked up by younger people so it has not completely disappeared. Some of the students have learnt some traditional skills from older family members. They don’t teach traditional crafts at this college. They teach some traditional boat-building and chair-making at the start, but then move on to modern techniques.
Before industrial management, Finland had very strong traditional carpentry skills. In commercial terms, these have largely died out and have not yet undergone a rennaissance on the scale that has been seen in recent years in Britain. However, culturally they are keen to preserve and enliven these traditions. They are trying to integrate traditional and modern skills, especially with the boat-building. They are also integrating carpentry with complementary skills like metal-working.
I showed examples of my work to Marko – he was eager for me to go back and demonstrate some of the traditional British skills.
| Markku Tonttila, Puu Pro Gallery, Lahti |
Markku set up this organisation about 8 years ago. “Puu” means wood in Finnish. The Gallery is in a converted industrial glass factory on the old harbourside at Lahti. They’ve renovated it themselves with financial help from the local government and it provides a permanent exhibition space for practitioners’ work. This includes furniture, sculpture and a range of traditional products like small hand utensils, curved birch wood boxes, toys and ornaments. Outside the gallery was a large wood installation by Manu Hartmann which was impressive.
Markku is one of the top cabinet-makers in Northern Europe. A lot of traditional techniques were being lost through global ways of doing things. Their main concept was to promote locally sourced timber products, using the absolute best examples they could find. Only the people with the highest quality work and best ideas can be involved.
They are self-funded and wholly independent as an organisation. This gives them an independent voice in their woodland and forestry business. It also enables them to keep highly focused on what is right for them, as opposed to tailoring themselves to satisfy funding bodies. They have also proved that their makers can make a good living from their work.
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| Sauna buckets and birch boxes being made at Luostaring |
The carpenters will know where their tree has come from and will have a broad knowledge of the wood they are working with. However, they are then working the wood with a lot of machinery and not using hand tools very much.
Markku also wanted to encourage the interaction between a carpenter and a metal-worker, or a carpenter and a fabric-worker. He wanted these people to join together and collaborate in new ways. So that a metal-worker who is a knife-maker might meet a carpenter who needs hinges and they would then work together. They meet mainly through wordof- mouth and go on to work together on bigger projects and share jobs between practitioners.
They get international designers to come and work with local carpenters and teach them new ideas. They apply traditional skills to design new furniture, products and buildings for a modern marketplace. Last year, a leading Australian architect came to work with the local carpenters. They are making pieces for everday use, not just for museums. They create many sculptural pieces and big wooden structures for public areas. They also make a lot of public seating and other structures for local government.
I was greatly impressed by the initiative they take as a group and how they build strength in numbers. They were very open-minded about embracing new ideas and technologies.They use what they’ve got and make the most of it, for example laminating their poor woods to make something useable out of them.They were highly geared to a market place and were very realistic about what they’re making, how to sell it and who to.
Equally, they were very interested to see examples of my work. They don’t have a history in using organic shaped pieces of wood. They have one traditional shaped rocking chair, whereas in Britain there are so many different regional furniture designs. Most of their pieces are using very linear pieces of wood and there are very few people doing traditional work.
They use mainly birch, pine and spruce. These are woods that I am less familiar with. Because they grow more slowly in the colder Finnish climate, these species are much better quality and stronger than in Britain.
There’s also a whole side of their forestry that they don’t use because they don’t have any history in it. They didn’t use oak, elm, or other hardwood trees and they seemed scared of using these other woods. I was interested to see a lot of elm which survives because the cold climate knocks back any disease.
They were very interested in setting up an exchange of skills with me and I saw a long term opportunity in teaching them some of the traditional English skills. I found their spirit of independence and ambition so refreshing and look forward to developing an ongoing relationship with these people.
There is a Finnish Wood School, like The Scottish Woodschool, that the top cabinetmakers attend.
| Mr Silverstrom |
I visited Mr Silverstrom, who lives on an island in the eastern archipegalo near where Tove Janson wrote the “Moonmintroll” books. He is a carpenter who runs his own business using locally sourced timber. He also owns some woodlands from which he extracts materials and uses his own electric kiln for drying the timber.
He trained to be a concert pianist, but when he didn’t make the top grade, he trained as a carpenter, like his father and grand-father before him. He’s done a lot of house renovations and traditional building repairs. Generally he works on his own although he has had several apprentices. He paid 15% of their wages, and the local government paid 85%. The apprenticeship lasted for four years. They then have two years working with him, before they go for the master carpenter’s qualification. In the longer term they’d helped each other out and he’d shared some jobs with his apprentices. He was very willing to help bring on the next generation.
A few years ago he’d got a contract for the carpentry work for the Viking Line’s super ferries. He was making the discotechques and bars. He’d also built his own house, most of the furniture in it, and several other local houses from the timber around the site. He had two further plots where he’d laid the foundations to build a house for each of his children. They were getting the harvesters ready to chop the trees down.
He had his own workshop with top of the range machines. He also used plywood and MDF, from the local factory. He was very self-contained. He felt the younger generation were coming back to embrace the traditional crafts.
He was a carpenter with a great deal of knowledge about the forests and the trees, involved in the whole process, from managing the trees right through to the end product. His carpentry was integrated into a rural way of life, often working in a number of other parttime jobs. Now he drives the local snow plough. He had also helped organise the local timber growers into an association.
He showed me a traditional rocking chair made by his wife’s grandfather. This design has very long runners. It was made from birch wood. I’d always understood birch couldn’t be used for furniture but their birch is much stronger because it’s grown more slowly.
He also showed me a blanket box. This was a traditional Finnish dowry item that would be made by the best carpenter in the family, who’d also be multiskilled. He explained to me how the right for anyone to go into the forest was being exploited by Romanian and even Korean gangs coming to harvest mushrooms and berries. The local people were not overly protective about this because they are fairly open about the produce being used.
Mr Silverstrom stressed the importance of being multi-skilled. He was very content and hospitable. He was living validation of how a carpenter can work on a small scale and integrate into the modern world without being turned into someone else.
| Howard Blackbourn, Falkberg |
Howard Blackbourn is half Finnish, half British. He grew up in England and his family farmed in different places. Howard worked renovating some of the traditional buildings in Suffolk. His father bought the Falkberg estate in the west of Finland in the 1950s and Howard and his family are now settled there. There are about 700 acres of forestry and 50 acres of arable land. It’s mainly a mix of pine, spruce and birch and he manages this with his wife Koti. Howard’s knowledge and appreciation of forestry, management and the timber market was limitless and I learnt an enormous amount from him.
In Finland, the national forestry organisation require woodland owners to put their land in four categories: good soil, clay soil, sandy soil, poor quality soil/stone. Each area of his land is mapped geologically. Every single tree on that land is then mapped both by a man on the ground who logs the trees, and by satellite pictures.
In Finland, they’re really strict on the amount of wood you are allowed to take out of the forest. They have a system half-way between clear felling and continuous cover forestry. They are only allowed to clear-fell an area of 10ha at any one time. There are further restrictions if the land is near roads, or public habitations.
There is then a 5, 10, 15 and 20 year plan for the forest management. At any one time he knows exactly the cubic metreage of the trees he has and how much each area is growing per year. When a harvester takes the trees, they will leave seed trees in that stand to produce natural regeneration. They believe an indigenous seedling will flourish better than a planted seedling. As they are not opening up large tracts, this reduces the storm damage and is visually less crude. I saw many examples of this, where the felled pockets sat more easily within the forests.
The technology they have with the harvesters and forwarders is considerable and makes them highly efficient. They are all owned by private business. Howard will contact them to clear or thin a particular sector. At the end of the day, he will get a print-out from the harvester of what type of timber has been cut out, the cubic metreage of the timber cut, the quality of the timber and the price of the timber. The price is then shown in the local press and the national press. It’s like stocks and shares and prices are governed on a national level.
Finland produces 90 million cubic metres of timber a year. Approximately 30 million cubic metres is used in Finland, 30 is for pulp and 30 for export. Everyone works with a very long term view. Many of the Scots Pines are 200 years old. A bigger company might have 40-50 big harvesters working in the south west of Finland. They will know exactly what they are taking out and already have the market for it in place. Since most trees are so straight, anything with more than a 5 degree bend will be taken straight to the pulp factory.
The management of the woodland is left to the timber growers. Poorly managed woodlands won’t be entered by big harvesting machines. State owned pulp and saw mills manage their own woodland, often contracting local farmers/foresters to work on their behalf.
Elk damage to trees is an ongoing problem. The elk population is carefully controlled, tracked, numbered and regularly culled.
To a farmer, the woodland is an essential part of his business and he manages it very astutely. The timber can either be used by him or sold, in round logs for pulp or planked at a saw mill. The local demand for his timber is quite limited. Several big companies like UPM operate in Howard’s area and purchase most of the timber.
The farmers/foresters have grouped together to form large organisations to better represent their interests. In this way they can then get the best price for their commodity and ensure that their land is well looked after.
The climate limits the damage by insects, like with Dutch Elm disease, and they use less pesticides. They don’t use chemicals like Round-Up when planting new trees. They work with a sensitive understanding of nature and the activity of spores from the fungi. Their forest floors are very fertile and support a wide variety of fungi and edible berries. We picked bountiful chanterelles and bilberries.
In Finland all the timber is milled on circular saws, where the blade is about 6mm wide. There was very little understanding of band saws, like the Wood- Mizer, where the blade is only 1mm wide.
Howard wanted to use his own timber to restore wooden houses on the estate. He bought a Wood- Mizer to convert his timber into useable wood and later became the Wood-Mizer agent for Finland. There was some apprehension as to whether an English man could sell such saws to the Finns, however, he has successfully sold over 100 saws, mainly to small woodland owners who want to utilise their own timber. This encourages activities other than large, commercial interests.
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| Howard Blackbourn's hydraulic Wood-Mizer plant at Falkberg |
The Finns take great care at home to protect their own forests, technology and foresters. Like many other countries, they are more ruthless in dealing with forestry on other people’s land. It is a Finnish company who has created the biggest saw mill and pulp factory in Russia. Many of the companies stripping the Amazon are Finnish owned/managed. On a small scale I saw this on the Isle of Skye earlier in the summer where huge areas were being crudely clear-felled by foreign-owned companies for pulp.
There’s a lot of other double-dealing. After the Soviet Union collapsed and Estonia became independent, each citizen was given a certain hectarage. Private companies locate these woodlands on the GPS. Using large machinery, they then strip out a forest over night and remove all the timber. The local people have no idea what they have lost. The Finnish and Estonian governments are now working together to map the forest areas to try and control them better.
Howard lit-up when discussing English timberframing and traditional carpentry skills. He felt that true craftsmen in Finland are a dying breed. They do not really exist anymore and this is a great loss. Most modern carpenters don’t know how to use a hammer, or saw, only a nail gun. They can’t hang a door. This loss of traditional skills is also a loss of quality.
Howard was one of the most well-informed and astute people I have met. I very much hope to find some traditional timber-framing projects to work on with him.
| Conclusion |
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| A 200 year old pine forest at Falkberg |
The people I met were striving at every level to be the top of their trade, from managing forests right through to crafts. There was a lot of pride, ambition and adaptability to changing markets. They exhibited great respect for working with and managing nature sustainably, rather than controlling the woods to exploit for the maximum return in the short term. There is also a national commitment and respect for timber, which is in total contrast to here.
Many of the crafts-people were contented with what they were doing. They had established and guaranteed outlets which enabled them to concentrate on their primary job. They were not distracted by wearing too many hats, or being over-ambitious. There was much to be said for their way of life. It was inspiring to see how they applied some traditional techniques to more modern designs – how they have great independence of spirit to get on and create organisations to represent their interests and make the things they wanted to do happen. Also to see how they interacted with other crafts-people like blacksmiths and leatherworkers to create unique pieces. These are all things I would like to explore in my own work.
I saw jointing methods I have not seen before and would like to try. I also saw the possibility for using scrap timber and producing beautiful products from it. The real hi-tech forestry and carpentry was impressive. It helped inform me why British timber and products cannot compete effectively on some levels.
At the same time, there were clear gaps that highlighted the unique strengths of what we do here and how the traditional manangement of our small woodlands enables a wider range of species to grow. I saw examples of extremely high quality craftmanship. Yet much of the work lacked reflection of the organic forms it had come from. The economic and industrial drivers have almost destroyed their traditional crafts which in the museums were so impressive.
There has been a much stronger revival (and growing market) for traditional carpentry skills in Britain. I felt very lucky to have learnt from this. I found definite opportunities to promote and export these and look forward to an ongoing exchange with the people I have met.
Above all, it really helped refresh and reinforce my view on what matters most to me. Of being hands-on, involved in managing small woods and converting that timber into useful structures and products.