Kulttuurisauna

This guide to Kulttuurisauna in Helsinki follows architect Tuomas Toivonen and artist Nene Tsuboi, who built this wood-fired sauna themselves on the Merihaka shoreline in 2013, after the city had gone fifty years without a new public sauna. You'll hear how they taught themselves a trade nobody in Helsinki still practiced, and why they refused to explain the stove to first-time visitors, letting the hiss of the ladle answer instead. The guide also traces the sauna back to a 1925 warning from architect Alvar Aalto about Finland losing its bathing tradition.