Porvoo on Porvoonjoki river

Saturday, 11 April 2015 - 01:00 pm (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination:
Category/Kategorie: General, UNESCO World Heritage
Reading Time:  5 minutes

Main Square with Porvoo Museum, the former town hall © kallerna/cc-by-sa-4.0

Main Square with Porvoo Museum, the former town hall © kallerna/cc-by-sa-4.0

Porvoo is a city and a municipality situated on the southern coast of Finland approximately 50 kilometres (30 mi) east of Helsinki. Porvoo is one of the six medieval towns in Finland, first mentioned as a city in texts from 14th century. Porvoo was given city rights around 1380, even though according to some sources the city was founded in 1346. The old city of Porvoo was formally disestablished and the new city of Porvoo founded in 1997 when the city of Porvoo and the Rural municipality of Porvoo were consolidated.

When Sweden lost the city of Vyborg to Russia in 1721, the episcopal seat was moved to Porvoo. At this time, Porvoo was the second largest city in Finland. After the conquest of Finland by Russian armies in 1808 Sweden had to cede Finland to Russia in 1809 (the Treaty of Fredrikshamn). The Diet of Porvoo in 1809 was a landmark in the History of Finland. The Tsar Alexander I confirmed the new Finnish constitution (which was essentially the Swedish constitution from 1772), and made Finland an autonomous Grand Duchy.

Riverside wooden storage buildings in Old Porvoo © SimoM/cc-by-sa-3.0 Old quarter © Paul.schrepfer/cc-by-sa-3.0 New Town Hall © Beckstet/cc-by-sa-3.0 New housing © kallerna/cc-by-sa-3.0 Porvoo Museum, former town hall © Jpatokal/cc-by-sa-4.0 Main Square with Porvoo Museum, the former town hall © kallerna/cc-by-sa-4.0
<
>
Main Square with Porvoo Museum, the former town hall © kallerna/cc-by-sa-4.0
The town is famed for its “Old Town”, a dense medieval street pattern with predominantly wooden houses. The Old Town came close to being demolished in the 19th century by a new urban plan for the city. The plan was cancelled due to a popular resistance headed by Count Louis Sparre. The central point of the old town is the medieval, stone and brick Porvoo Cathedral which gave its name to the Porvoo Communion – an inter-church agreement between a number of Anglican and Lutheran denominations. The cathedral was damaged by fire on 29 May 2006: the roof was totally destroyed but the interior is largely intact. A drunken youth had played with fire at the church, unaware of recent tarwork and nearby tarcontainers, accidentally causing a large fire. He was later sentenced to a short prison term and restitutions of 4.3 million Euro. The red-coloured wooden storage buildings on the riverside are a proposed UNESCO world heritage site. By the early 19th century authorities already understood the value of the old town. With the need for growth, a plan was envisioned for a ‘new town’ built adjacent to the old town, following a grid plan but with houses also built of wood.

By the end of the 20th century there was pressure to develop the essentially untouched western side of the river. There was concern that growth would necessitate the construction of a second bridge across the river into the town, thus putting further strain on the wooden town. An architectural competition was held in 1990, the winning entry of which proposed building the second bridge. Plans for the western side of the river have progressed under the direction of architect Tuomas Siitonen, and both a vehicle bridge and a pedestrian bridge have been built. The design for new housing is based on a typology derived from the old storehouses on the opposite side of the river. Yet another new development entails the construction of a large business park called King’s Gat. Porvoo railway station does not have regular train service, but special excursion trains from Kerava (either with steam locomotives or former VR diesel railcars from the 1950s) operate on summer weekends.

Read more on Porvoo, Porvoo Tourism, Wikitravel Porvoo and Wikipedia Porvoo. Learn more about the use of photos. To inform you about latest news most of the city, town or tourism websites offer a newsletter service and/or operate Facebook pages/Twitter accounts. In addition more and more destinations, tourist organizations and cultural institutions offer Apps for your Smart Phone or Tablet, to provide you with a mobile tourist guide (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.




Recommended posts:

Share this post: (Please note data protection regulations before using buttons)

Marmaray: A tunnel connects Europe with Asia

Marmaray: A tunnel connects Europe with Asia

[caption id="attachment_25152" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Marmaray Project © R1410/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Marmaray is a rail transport project in the Turkish city of Istanbul. It comprises an undersea rail tunnel under the Bosphorus strait, and the modernization of existing suburban railway lines along the Sea of Marmara from Halkalı on the European side to Gebze on the Asian side. The procurement of new rolling stock for suburban passenger traffic is also part of the project. Construction started in 2004...

[ read more ]

Khan Shatyr Entertainment Center in Astana

Khan Shatyr Entertainment Center in Astana

[caption id="attachment_25614" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © building.co.uk[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Khan Shatyr ("Royal Marquee") is a giant transparent tent in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan. The architectural project was unveiled by the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev on December 9, 2006. The 150m-high (500 ft) tent has a 200m elliptical base covering 140,000 square metres (14 ha; 35 acres). Underneath the tent, an area larger than 10 football stadiums, is an urban-scale internal park, shop...

[ read more ]

Zell am See

Zell am See

[caption id="attachment_160602" align="aligncenter" width="590"] seen from Mitterberg Mountain © BestZeller[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Zell am See is the capital city of the Zell am See district in the Austrian state of Salzburg. The city has about 10,000 inhabitants. Zell am See is a tourist destination and a transportation hub for the region. The German name "Zell am See" means "Zell by the lake". The valley of Zell is a corridor in the middle of the Austrian Alps between the Saalach and the Salzach rivers. The lake is...

[ read more ]

Djamaâ el Djazaïr is set to become the third biggest mosque in the world

Djamaâ el Djazaïr is set to become the third biggest mosque in the world

[caption id="attachment_152879" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © competitionline.com[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]PROJECT Djamaâ el Djazaïr is set to become the third biggest mosque in the world, with a prayer hall capable of holding 35,000 worshippers and a complex including conference rooms, libraries and other facilities. Architects Drees & Sommer are working with Jürgen Engel Architekten and the engineering consultancy Krebs und Kiefer on the project, which is likely to take more than four years to complete. THE ...

[ read more ]

Keong Saik Road in Singapore

Keong Saik Road in Singapore

[caption id="attachment_227534" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Jacklee/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Keong Saik Road is a one-way road located in Chinatown within the Outram Planning Area in Singapore. The road links New Bridge Road to Neil Road, and is intersected by Kreta Ayer Road. Keong Saik Road was named in 1926 after the Malacca-born Chinese businessman, Tan Keong Saik, in remembrance to his contribution to the Chinese community. The stretch of road became a prominent red-light district with many bro...

[ read more ]

Printemps Paris Haussmann

Printemps Paris Haussmann

[caption id="attachment_216495" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © flickr.com - OliBac/cc-by-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Printemps is a French department store chain (French: grand magasin, literally "big store"). The Printemps stores focus on beauty, lifestyle, fashion, accessories, and men's wear. The flagship Printemps store is located on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, along with other well-known department stores like Galeries Lafayette. There are other Printemps stores in Paris and throughout Fra...

[ read more ]

Venetian Islands in Florida

Venetian Islands in Florida

[caption id="attachment_223186" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Westernmost Venetian Islands © Averette/cc-by-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Venetian Islands are a chain of artificial islands in Biscayne Bay in the cities of Miami and Miami Beach, Florida. The islands are, from west to east: Biscayne Island (Miami), San Marco Island (Miami), San Marino Island (Miami Beach), Di Lido Island (Miami Beach), Rivo Alto Island (Miami Beach), and Belle Isle (Miami Beach). Flagler Monument Island remains an uninhabited picnic island...

[ read more ]

Thirteen Colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America

Thirteen Colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America

[caption id="attachment_233146" align="aligncenter" width="483"] © Richard Zietz/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centuries, they began fighting the American Revolutionary War in April 1775 and formed the United States of America by declaring full independence in July 1776. Just prior to dec...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Belgium - Bruges, Venice of the North

Theme Week Belgium - Bruges, Venice of the North

[caption id="attachment_160477" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Rozenhoedkaai Canal © Jean-Christophe BENOIST[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country. The historic city centre is a prominent World Heritage Site of UNESCO. It is oval-shaped and about 430 hectares in size. The area of the whole city amounts to more than 13,840 hectares, including 1,075 hectares off the coast, at Zeebrugge (mea...

[ read more ]

Portrait: Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the Diesel engine

Portrait: Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the Diesel engine

[caption id="attachment_217847" align="aligncenter" width="443"] Rudolf Diesel © volvotrucks.com[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel was a German inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the Diesel engine, and for his suspicious death at sea. Diesel was the namesake of the 1942 film Diesel. The first successful Diesel engine ran in 1897 and is now on display at the German Technical Museum in Munich. Rudolf Diesel obtained patents for his design in Germany and other countries, including th...

[ read more ]

Return to TopReturn to Top
Salt evaporation ponds Ettore Infersa at Stagnone Marsala © flickr.com - Alun Salt
The port city of Marsala

Marsala is a seaport city located in the Province of Trapani on the island of Sicily in Italy. The low...

Oak Bay © flickr.com - rpaterso/cc-by-sa-2.0
Vancouver Island in British Columbia

Vancouver Island, located in British Columbia, Canada, is the largest Pacific island east of New Zealand. Originally called Quadra and...

Grande-Rue © Clicsouris/cc-by-sa-2.5
Marly-le-Roi in the western suburbs of Paris

Marly-le-Roi is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the...

Schließen