While Alvar Aalto’s Finlandia Hall at the Töölönlahti area in Helsinki is being renovated, the Little Finlandia pavilion serves to organize events during the renovation. The pavilion building is intended for temporary use and will be later taken apart and moved elsewhere.

The wood structured pavilion building’s spruce board cladding has been stained dark grey, distinguishing the temporary building from the white marble of the Finlandia Hall. A special feature of the pavilion is a row of Scotch pine trunks with boughs. The trunks have been processed to have an even surface and they line the covered arcade on the side of the park and the café terrace on the side of the Töölönlahti bay. In total, there are 95 of these pine pillars that serve as load-bearing structures in the building.

Little Finlandia was designed together with the students of Wood Program and Building Design Studio operating in connection with the Department of Architecture at Aalto University. The winning entry was by Jaakko Torvinen, Havu Järvelä and Elli Wendelin.