keynote address THE CULTURE OF QUIETNESS Yrjo Sotamaa Chairman, Japan Finland Design Association JFDA (Finland) Rector, University of Art and Design Helsinki "Nothing has changed the nature of Man so much as the loss of silence." Max Picard, The World of Silence, 1948 "Pictures, if they are to have effect, must have the tremendous intensity of silence, a filled silence or void. The observer should become motionless before the picture, freeze." Luc Tuymans, Display Exhibition, Helsinki 2003 The Q exhibition, opened the day before yesterday here in Tokyo in the Living Design Center OZONE, examines the culture of quietness and Finnish design through three different points of view. The main part of the exhibition is a vision of the future. Fifteen of Finland's most accomplished designers, architects, artists and craftsmen have been invited to give their interpretation of the theme and create new works for the exhibition. The second part of the exhibition presents contemporary Finnish design products of leading Finnish design-oriented companies. The third part illustrates the cultural background, from which Finnish design has grown and includes examples of classic Finnish everyday objects, many of which are icons of modernity and good design. The whole exhibition demonstrates also the unique tradition in Finland of designers, architects, craftsmen and artist working closely together to shape our living environment. The works, and the exhibition as a whole, make the tremendous energy in quietness visible by conveying the emotional, intuitive, multi-sensory and intellectual qualities of Finnish design, architecture and art. The Q exhibition wishes to deepen the understanding of Finnish design among the Japanese audience. Moreover, we hope to create a critical discussion of the values guiding the development of our material culture. The themes of the exhibition are also discussed in an English-Japanese book published by the University of Art and Design Helsinki to celebrate the Q exhibition. Throughout the book and the works of the exhibition, we ask: What should the philosophy of shaping the future of our material culture be? Should it be the philosophy of quietness? Q is one of the main events of the Feel Finland project, which introduces Finnish art and science to the Japanese audience throughout autumn 2003. Feel Finland is organised by the Finnish Institute in Japan in co-operation with the Embassy of Finland. Symposiums as forums for dialogue The Quietness exhibition, the book and this symposium were not brought about by the efforts of Finnish designers, artists and architects alone: they are very much the fruit of exceptionally extensive Finnish-Japanese dialogue. This dialogue has taken place in the beauty of the Finnish summer, the Midsummer bonfires burning through the white night, in the rustic milieu of Antintalo (the White Nights symposium), under the blossoming cherry trees of Shinkuju part and the serene atmosphere of Urasenke tea room (the Cherry Blossom symposium), as well as amidst the snowfields of Finnish Lapland, when the dazzling Northern Lights filled the wintry sky (the White Days symposium). The Quietness book and exhibition are a record of our views and discussions. The Finnish-Japanese dialogue centring on the Quietness theme was first started by the Tokyo-based professor, Keiko Torigoe, and her question on the architecture of quietness. She was interviewing me for Voice of Design magazine. Could the urban soundscape be shaped, be given architecture, and could it be composed? How could we manage the overwhelming noise and create quietness, space for observations? Quietness generates energy and opportunities My conversation with Professor Keiko Torigoe at the Finnish Institute in Japan was suddenly all about those visual, haptic, and total experiences that our senses create from the stimuli we receive from our surroundings. Quietness did not mean silence, the absence of aural stimuli, rather the idea of harmony and circumstance, which is an essential part of an enjoyable and stimulating total experience. We used the symphony as a metaphor. The instruments of an orchestra and the space of sounds are used skilfully to create a work of art. In a symphony, the quiet sounds have a significant part in the structure of symphonic compositions. They give space for the mind to rest, to observe, descend, wait and prepare for the other, a change. Quietness can, as an experience, be just as potent as the flood of music surging from the entire arsenal of instruments in the orchestra. Our conversation naturally moved on to architecture, national traditions and the experiences of quietness. Tea room, sauna, Alvar Aaltoﾕs architecture, Florence, Italy, an open lake covered by a sheet of ice and snow in the interior of Finland with stoic men sitting out there, ice-fishing, a pine heath gilded by the sun's rays, and the waterside meadow in midsummer full of flowers, all these came up. Calmness, serenity and stillness were things associated with them. We noticed that experiences and images of these things were also linked with dignity, sensitivity and sensuality. I discussed with Professor Keiko Torigoe some of my memories of my salmon fishing trips every summer to the northernmost border of Lapland, River Tenojoki, which flows into the Arctic Ocean. The majestic stream flows slowly in the bed of gravel it has dug out for itself over the course of thousands of years. The soft light of the white nights, the oars dipping into the water the colour of dark copper, with leisurely, even strokes. Clouds rolling hurriedly south. Everything quiet, as if waiting for the thunderbolt, the sudden shock that one always feels when the salmon bites. Quietness is just as important a part of fishing as the long struggle with the strong salmon, with its gleaming silvery flanks. Quietness is full of energy, a charge waiting to be released. The fishing equipment and the light riverboat, honed by a hundred years of experience are also integral to the whole. The quietness in a tearoom is not mute to me. It is only lacks words, a taciturn conversation of the minds, a way of being and communicating in an environment, the composition of which creates a perfect, down toned harmony. Just like the symphony, a tearoomﾕs architectural idiom is very complex, restful but at the same time tense and charged. Modesty is at the heart of its dignity. The quietness of the sauna unites earth, water and fire into a ritual that even purifies the mind. Bathing in a sauna is a dialogue between people naked and still, sitting in the warmness and dimness. Nature is the framework around the tearoom, as well as the sauna, and inseparable from both traditions, in order for the experiences to be complete. Finland and Japan share many characteristics in their way of thinking and world of experiences. I told Professor Torigoe about my recollections after a visit to Kyoto years ago. We had visited, my wife Pirkko and I, the Katsura Palace and many other temples in the Kyoto area. The moss and stone gardens left a deep impression on us. Later, when staring out of my sauna window into the rainy forest, I noticed that all that the builders of the temple gardens had strived for was right there, in front of my very eyes, every day. A pile of rocks, left there after the ice had retreated, stones covered in moss, a spreading rowan, and the golden trunks of pines. Finnish and Japanese ideals and experiences were thus related. Rush is noise, which often stops us from seeing what is around us. I told Professor Kenji Ekuan and Professor Makoto Shimazki about my discussions with Professor Keiko Torigoe. We were looking for a theme for the exhibition that the Japan Finland Design Association was planning to arrange. The idea was to use the exhibition as a tool of cultural comparison. Quietness felt like a good idea. It was like a refreshing garden that we could cultivate together. Quietness is strongly present in Finnish design tradition I live in a forest, because I love its gentle quietness, the multitude of different tones in it, in the less and less frequent moments of peace that I have. Lack of time threatens the space of my experiences, the landscape of tranquil quietness that is so nourishing for my thoughts. Quietness is full of life, tones and touching sensations. If only I could give myself time to observe and feel them. Take your time and you will see a lot. Quietness is strongly present in Finnish architecture and design traditions. It shuns anything that is loud, fleeting, craving for attention. Our material world is calmly there, intellectually inspiring, exuding cool beauty. We tune our environment to the abstract Modernism and the organic shapes of nature. Alvar Aalto, Tapio Wirkkala, as well as Timo Sarpaneva, drew their forms from this space: waterlines smoothed by the Ice Age, the organic arches of the flora, the grooved surface of the ice thawed by the spring, and the harmony of abstract geometrical forms. Nature is strongly present in our modern tradition, not as decoration, but as a source of forms and map of colours. We are part of northern nature; our culture has grown from it. Surviving harsh conditions has stripped our aesthetic idiom clean of complexity and made it pragmatic. The lack of ornamentation and simplicity of Finnish design is not poverty of imagination. It spawns objects that are open to interpretations, free from typologies or categorisation. Kaj Frank is the master of the universal: his dishes are befitting a modest meal or a grand dinner. The poetry of his formal idiom is often like a whisper, picturesque and serene. The great narratives and dramas are absent from our tradition. The language of the forms also refrains from feeding the sexual layers of our subconscious. As if we would have wanted to deny their existence. The purpose of design is to make it possible for everyone to have a good and spiritually rich life The quiet language of form is not impotent, submissive or mute. Quiet can be joyous, determined verses that linger in the mind. Natalie Lahdenm殻i and Tuuli Sotamaaﾕs objects continue the tradition of quietness by trying to soften the language of forms, like moss on a stone. The product of a sensitive mind and hand has a thought-provoking and poetic presence. The uniqueness of Finnish design gains its strength from many sources. The most important one has always been the dynamic and ambitious community of creative people and creative will. Members of this community, designers, architects, artisans, and artists, have always wanted and been able to co-operate creatively. Our culture is nourished by an artistic approach marked by curiosity, the aim of creating art works, everyday objects and environments which make life, Finnish culture, and works moulding the two, meaningful. Instead of a fleeting sensation, we are striving towards something that stays longer. Forms, spatial compositions, and the harmony born out of the relations between objects, is often Sibelian in its coolness, charged with anticipation, rational. Design creates and interprets the reality in which we live. The outcomes of our work always have a function: their task is to make it possible for everyone to have a good and spiritually rich life, to make the world interesting, and help us understand the world in which we live. Marimekko was born in eastern Finland, from the idea of a road running thorough a Karelian village, the vivacity of everyday life, to which idea Vuokko Nurmesniemi, Maija Isola, Annika Rimala, Fuji Ishimoto and numerous other designers have given shape, pulsating with modern lifestyle. In a time, which so excessively idealises external beauty, technology and commercial values, it is important to emphasise thought that grows out of, and serves, peopleﾕs real needs. The challenge is to coax the increasingly technology-oriented world to take heed of peopleﾕs needs and find a way to reinforce universal values. Lisa Johansson-Pape and Yki Nummi have designed light, looking for comfort. Antti Nurmesniemi, Simo Heikkil�, Yrj� Wiherheimo and Ilkka Suppanenﾕs furniture stem from the memory of experiences, seeking the rational, respecting the material. Such thinking takes us closer to the culture of equal wellbeing. Our dialogue has explored the common ground of Finnish and Japanese culture, their philosophical and experiential foundations, and looked for ways of thinking that could serve as basis for culture that enriches life. Instead of flickering images, a material world that feeds intellectual curiosity and spiritual dignity. Our dialogue has created deep friendship. One that will not melt away. Thanks to all partners and colleagues I wish to heartily thank the Japan Finland Design Association in Japan and the Living Design Center OZONE for the excellent collaboration in realising the ambitious Q exhibition. I also wish to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Kenji Ekuan, Professor Emeritus Makoto Shimazaki, Director Daisaburo Murai, the participating Finnish designers, artists and architects, the numerous companies, foundations and organisations in Japan and Finland whose enthusiasm and support have made this rare exhibition and the Q book possible. Secretariat Japan Finland Design Association (Japan) c/o The Finnish Institute in Japan 3-5-39 Minami Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan 106-8561 c/o GK Graphics Incorporated telephone : 03-5952-6831 facsimile : 03-5952-6832 e-mail : jfda@gk-design.co.jp previous