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| this photo and the next four courtesy of Minna Haveri |
A recent post in this weblog, published on January 24, 2025, was dedicated to Veikko Salo from Padasjoki, Finland, who in 2017 began building small-scale houses and other buildings from stacked firewood, which he situated in a wooded area along road 24.
From the responses to the article it became clear that there is at least one other art environment in Finland that focuses on creations made with wooden materials collected in the forests as firewood.
Life and works
This refers to an art environment created by Pentti Kangasaho and Mervi Rintala, living in a hamlet that is part of the municipality of Urjala in the Finnish region of Western and Central Finland.
This hamlet, called Pertunkulma, is located some 5 km east of the built-up area of Urjala and is situated in a very wooded area.
Pentti Kangasaho and his wife Mervi Rintala live here in a rural home, which means that there is plenty of space around the house to situate piles of firewood, a fuel that in Finland is widely used for heating homes, especially in rural wooded areas.
This was also the case at Pentti and Mervi's house, and so it happened that Pentti, who always found it very attractive to make something with his hands, came up with the idea of transforming piles of firewood into small buildings.
And so, in 2005 Pertti, assisted by Mervi, began constructing firewood buildings which got situated in the space near their house. as shown in the photos.
The first building the couple created, was a stacked construction of firewood, covered with a ridge of a fiber cement plate, which protected the stack from too much moisture.
After more than ten years of creative construction and partly also the burning of some creations, in the summer of 2017 a cozy village had been established, comprising a church, a rectory and several residential buildings.
The church, depicted below, named Ketunaho Chapel, occupies a special place amidst all other creations.
Fifteen cubic meters of birch and spruce wood were used for its construction.
The roof, in the shape of a saddle roof, has been made of old mineral wall plates and the whole is decorated with a small square tower with a spire made of residual wood.
The church was consecrated in 2013 by the Reverend Kauko Keränen, who stated in his speech that Mervi and Pentti had the right to set fire to the building if this was considered as convenient and appropriate.
Another notable event involving the church occurred in 2014, when the Finnish newspaper Yle Tampere organized a competition for the most beautiful photo of a self-created wooden structure, which was won by Mervi Rintala who had made the photo of the church which she herself had helped to create.
The above text describes the situation of the art environment as it had developed in around 2015. No information is available on the internet about the developments of the site in the ten years or so that followed.
This also means that it is currently unclear whether the site can be visited, which in the early years was possible once a year during a weekend in a summer month.
Environmental and health aspects of collecting and burning wood
For followers of this blog who live in other countries then Finland it can be interesting to hear more about environmental and health aspect of working with firewood.
The Finnish website
Puu-info, a promoter of responsible wood use, states that in Finland, despite the use of wood from forests (which account for 75 percent of the country's total area) thanks to forest management measures, the amount of wood in Finnish forests has increased by 60 percent in 70 years.
As for the use of wood as fuel, it is stated that this doesn't lead to an increase in the concentrations of carbon dioxide and sulphur in the air or to an increase in the greenhouse effect of the climate. The combustion of wood releases the same amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the decomposition of wood in nature.
Finland also has an annual prize, the Wood Award, which is awarded for an interesting and responsible use of wood.
Documentation
* Article (undated) on the website
Maaseudun Sivistysliitto, ITE Pirkanmaala/Urjala * Article (July 2014) about the site in newspaper
Yle Tampere * Article (July 2016) about the site in regional periodical
Luonnon Varassa, p 20-23
*
Article (July 2014) in newspaper
Yle Tampere about the photo contest, with a series of photos of all kinds of stacked firewood in Finland
Pentti Kangasaho & Mervi Rintala
Buildings made from firewood
143 Pertunkulmantie
Hamlet of Pertunkulma, municipality of Urjala, dept Pirkanmaa, region Western and Central Finland, Finland
it is not clear whether the site can be visited today
an image on Google Streetview, most likely shows the location of the art environment because of the church building that can be seen
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