Even the most ardent of city lovers sometimes needs a little peace and quiet, a place to reflect, or just a sanctuary from other people.  Parks can be good, but nothing beats churches and chapels.  It always surprises me that they’re so empty.  Perhaps people feel they’ll be obliged to pray when they enter, or could be accosted by some crazed evangelical minister determined to convert the innocent passer-by in need of a moment’s silence.  No matter.  The emptier the better in my view.

In Helsinki, residents and visitors looking to sit in silence have two very lovely havens, both of which I visited recently.  The first is Kamppi Chapel (pictured below) which opened in 2012.  I love the fact that the chapel is administered jointly by the city’s parishes and Helsinki’s Social Services Department.  It’s an extraordinary building.  Simple and beautiful, it resembles a huge wooden boat that washed up in one of the city’s busiest shopping areas.  It seems hardly possible that it has been open only five years.  It communicates that thing you find in ancient churches, the feeling that it has trapped within its walls the silence and sense of calm which its visitors are longing to absorb.

The second chapel I visited was Temppeliaukio Church, known to everyone (probably because Finnish is so hard to pronounce) as the Rock Church.  Excavated into solid rock and topped with a bronze dome, it was opened in 1969.  It has more of the trappings of a conventional church that Kamppi Chapel – altar, pews, organ, and so on – and is more explicitly Christian.  Bathed in light and the warm colors of the granite and wood, it’s a perfect place to sit for a few minutes.