September 30, 2013

0819 FINLAND (Southwest Finland) - Archangel Michael's church in Turku


In 1894, when won the competition for the building of this church, Lars Sonck only just graduated from Helsinki Polytechnic Institute, and had long time to become one of the prominent figures of National Romanticism. Archangel Michael's church is a distinguished example of the neogothic style, built of red brick, with a roof made of grey green slate from Norway. It is a long church with three aisles, galleries and a multifaceted choir. In addition to the main entrance there are also doors at each corner of the church. The main spire rises to a height of 77 meters from the foundations.

The architect Max Frelander, who worked as an assistant of Sonck, has contributed to the interior design. A rich Jugend ornamentation decorates both the interior, the staircases and the windows, where motifs from Finnish nature are associated with traditional Christian symbolism. The national romantic movement is particularly dominant in the design of the choir.

About the stamps
The first stamp, the cross-shaped self-adhesives one, is part of a series depicting the Finnish Archipelago, about which I wrote here.

The second stamp is part of an unusual series named Finnish Oddity, issued on May 6, 2013. It seems that Finns have a passion for odd contests and they even arrange world championships in various weird sports, and the artist Bruno Maximus has picked six peculiar Finnish sports as the themes of this series (all the stamps have the same face value) :
• Wife carrying
• Air guitar playing
• Anthill sitting - it's on this postcard
• Boot throwing
• Old-geezer carting
• Swamp soccer

References
Archangel Michael's church, Turku - Wikipedia
Stamps released in May feature true Finnish oddity - Posti for Consumers

sender: Tero / Kekkuli (postcrossing)
sent from Mikkeli (Southern Savonia / Finland), on 18.09.2013
photo: Pentti Harala

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