Helsinki Tales. The City Described by Travellers Past

The popular cultural environment-themed lectures at the Helsinki City Museum continue. The second lecture in the series will be given by historian Marikit Taylor. The language of the lecture is English.

At the end of the 18th century, foreign tourists, tired of the Grand Tour, started heading North in search of dramatic landscapes and strong sensations. After 1812, as the new capital, Helsinki became an attraction or a stopover for tourists and travelers alike, who sometimes described their experiences in diaries, journals and travel books. How did these foreign visitors describe the city, its development, its everyday life and some unusual events? And what was the gaze of these observers as they discovered the city and its culture, in a country generally unknown to them?

Marikit Taylor is a historian specialised in 19th-century history, with a focus on art and architecture. After specialising in cultural heritage and museology at the University of Geneva, she worked in as an independent researcher before becoming the manager of a UNESCO world heritage site (La Chaux-de-Fonds/Le Locle, Watchmaking Town Planning) and heading the promotion of architectural heritage for the City of La Chaux-de-Fonds. In 2022, she left Switzerland to pursue research projects in Finland, after falling in love with Helsinki when she first came in 2013, to study the city's Art Nouveau.

<h4 data-pm-slice="1 1 []">Upcoming lectures:</h4>

Wed 29 May at 5pm Tuija Väisänen: Täyttömaita ja rantarakenteita - Havis Amandan alueen arkeologiset tutkimukset ja hiukan myös soisia kerroksia Säätytalolta

Photo: Helsinki City Museum