Sunday, November 20, 2011

Rauma Day 010

Some of you already know that on last Tuesday, I had my real "Finnish experience" by going to a sauna where I dipped my body in a lake when it was -2°C outside. I want to show you this sauna's facility as it was designed by Alvar Aalto, an infamous Finnish architect and designer whose work includes architecture, furniture, textiles, and glassware. 

This sauna is called Jokisauna, which means river sauna. It's located in Kauttua, about 40 km east of Rauma. This town is known for paper mills, and this sauna was originally built for its workers as sauna and laudry facilities. Nowadays, it serves general public with it's two saunas (women's and men's), a meeting room, an art gallery, and a design shop.




Everything found inside is designed by Alvar Aalto. I'm bad with names, especially with architects,so Alvar Aalto didn't really ring a bell, but once I stepped inside, I soon recognized many items. 




Floor lamp. 


The Aalto vases. (deigned with his wife) It's also known as the Savory Vase because it was custom designed for the Savory restaurant in Helsinki. 



The Aalto Tea Cart and chair. 
Sorry for the fuzzy iphone pictures. I thought this place would be a giant public sauna, so I didn't bring my Canon DSLR... :( 



I love his textile design. This picture is taken from the meeting/dining room. As you see, there's a deck with more tables. It would be nice to come back in Summer. 



This trip was part of Raumars' board members meeting & early Christmas dinner. I'm so glad to take a part in this lovely dinner as I got to meet the board members of Raumars in a superb atmosphere. 



I forgot the name of the fish. But it's caught in the local river, and it has spikes... haha. It was so good. 

I was so thrilled to taste this dessert. It's a meringue!!!! omg.. melting in the mouth. I would've ate ten or twenty more if they had. 

Ok, let's go downstairs where it used to be a laundry room. 
It's now a design shop filled with many smart inventions. 

Among them, these santa (?) heads were my favorite. I wanted to pick up a pair, but they were really expensive. I wish Canadian $ was par with €. =( 


They look ten times better in real. My iphone just cannot pick up all those hair details. 

Next door was a little art gallery. They were preparing for an exhibition with paintings by local children who have mental disabilities. All the paintings were very precious, but there were three that really took my heart. 




I think this Hello Kitty painting is damn smart! I'm generally not so keen with children but I love their drawings. Maybe I should really start to consider becoming Art Therapist as my other path. 

We were the only group in this facility, so it felt more like a private sauna. I didn't take any pictures of the actual sauna since I didn't want to embarrass people. However, I found my Rabbit #4 and #5, so here they are. :)


These chocolates were in the Design shop. I wasn't sure if I should consider them as part of my odd rabbit series since they didn't look that odd. But, my rabbit #5, that I found in the sauna hallway, is so odd, I soon forgot about this dilemma. 


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