Prologue: Det Gamla Borgå

On this day, 3 April 1898 Louis Sparre gave a very special speech here in my home town. That speech was published on that year in a book form titled Det Gamla Borgå (Old Porvoo). 

This is not a story, but more or less an advert of forthcoming (hopefully) story about the subject. The reason is simply: this theme needs illustrations and I don’t have a permission to use the material I have. I hope that within the next couple of years I can sort that out and write a proper story on this same day in 2023, which is the 125th anniversary of that speech. (Update: I was planning to do that, but I was extremely busy with other things in the spring of 2023, so that was not happening. Sorry about that.)

And what speech I am then talking about? It was a speech about the old Porvoo, about it’s value and why it should be protected. It was given by a Swedish count Louis Sparre. He visited Porvoo first time in January 1893 and fell in love with my home town, particularly the old part of it. Certain Sparre related stories will be on my blog in the future, too, as he was so important character here in Porvoo. In fact, thanks to him, the old part of Porvoo survived. He had found out that the new town plan would destroy the old part of the town, its old town plan with picturesque, winding streets. So he gave a speech on 3 April 1898 and in that speech he pressed the value of the old part of Porvoo, not only from the perspective of Porvoo or Finland, but from wider perspective. And how right he was; nowadays tourists from all over the world visit Porvoo because of the old town. So, we needed a Swedish count to save the most valuable part of Porvoo. (I cannot resist saying that Porvoo would have needed another count later to save some historical buildings that were lost forever!)

The speech was published in a book form on that same year by Werner Söderström. The second edition was released in 1919 by Holger Schildts Förlagsaktiebolag. I have them both. As you can see in the picture above, my original copy is in a very bad condition, the front cover is loose (for some reason I didn’t place it even with the rest of the pages when taking the photo), but it has all the pages as well as the folded supplement that shows the town plans from 1650 (or 1651), 1726, 1898 and the new one showing the planned rectangular street layout.

In the book dedicated to Louis Sparre’s furniture designs, published by Porvoon Museoyhdistys, it is said that Sparre got his presentation printed, part of it on the handmade paper, chose the font and illustrated it with small woodcuts and red initial letters. It is mentioned that the book (the original 1898 edition) is one of the pearls of the book art in Finland. The second edition simplified the look a bit as you can see below. 

As the text continues (page 51) in the above mentioned book, the far-reaching consequence of the speech was that the town plan was renewed and thus Sparre’s speech about the importance of saving Old Porvoo is one of the most significant cultural acts in Finland. Thanks to him we still have here the beautiful old town with its narrow, meandering alleys instead of another dull town quarter with straight streets.

More about Louis Sparre here. (My story about his life from 2023.)

Text © Katriina Etholén

Additional source: Louis Sparre. Huonekalutaidetta. Porvoon museoyhdistyksen julkaisuja nro 9.