Surveys

Due to its size and young age, the Pohjola office building was a demanding building historical survey site. The modern architecture of the 1970s and ’80s has thus far been the subject of relatively few building historical surveys, so it took extensive groundwork to be able to view the building in its context and compare it to other projects of the same era.

In addition to inventorying the building and mapping out the expansion phases, we analysed the characteristics and significance of the architecture of the building complex. The working methods included archival research, interviews, on-site inventory and diagram work.

The building historical survey was carried out as the basis for zoning and a design competition held in the spring of 2014. The survey was commissioned at the request of the Helsinki City Planning Authority (KSV) by SRV Group Plc, which acts as a partner of W. P. Carey Inc, the US real estate investment company that owned the property at the time. The assignment included analysis and evaluation of the architecture and building history of the Pohjola insurance building and its various parts.

building historical survey and architectural analysis, 2013
Mustonen Architects Ltd.
contractee SRV Group Plc