Lapinlahden Lähde

This guide to Lapinlahden Lähde in Helsinki starts with an 1841 idea: treat a broken mind with cold spring water, clean air, and open sky, in Finland's first purpose-built mental hospital. It follows architect Carl Ludvig Engel, who also gave Helsinki its neoclassical Senate Square face, and Professor Carl Daniel von Haartman, who petitioned the emperor directly against the country's treatment of the mentally ill. You'll hear about Aleksis Kivi, later remembered as Finland's national author, who walked these gardens as a patient after his own mind broke down in 1870. Listen at the private beach where the spring still surfaces.