Finnish Rooftop Sauna
The Sauna is located in London on the rooftop of Queen Elisabeth Hall at Southbank Centre by the Thames river.
The Finnish Rooftop Sauna is a building for a sensorial and spiritual experience of transparency and light in the city. Like a lantern it glows at night, brights up the dark winter days and nights, becoming an ephemeral landmark for a lapse of time. Visitors immerse themselves and their senses in the sequences of spaces to experience different conditions of light and materiality before reaching out to the view and meet the busy city again from another perspective.
The Sauna is located in the heart of London on the rooftop of Queen Elisabeth Hall at Southbank Centre by the Thames river.
The Finnish Rooftop Sauna is a building for a sensorial and spiritual experience of transparency and light in the city. Like a lantern it glows at night, brights up the dark winter days and nights, becoming an ephemeral landmark for a lapse of time. Visitors immerse themselves and their senses in the sequences of spaces to experience different conditions of light and materiality before reaching out to the view and meet the busy city again from another perspective.
A sauna is a hot room, typically enclosed by wooden walls. People cyclically warm up in the sauna and cool down outside (bathing, showering or just rolling in the snow). This process lowers blood pressure and induces a feeling of relaxation for mind and body. Sauna practice is deep-rooted in Finnish culture. It can be experienced both individually and with others. It Is not only a place for closeness and peacefulness but also for debating, negotiation and new encounters. It is a social place of togetherness, equality and purity.
The sauna has been designed by a multicultural team from Finland and built in the United Kingdom as a place for encounter, transparency and openness to diversity. Finnish-not-Finland talks about a nomadic entity which travels without losing its own identity, bringing its unique voice to the places it visits. Finnish-not-Finland presents an aspect of Finnish tradition as an inclusive act of coexistence that considers diversity and change that is happening on a global scale today. Sauna as a culture not bound to one country. We wanted to design a sauna not as an experience only but also as a social and democratic act.
website: finnishnotfinland.com
Team: Markus Holste, Padro Pedro Garcia Alcazar, Monica Romagnoli, Miki Sordi
Photographer: Valentina Casalini
