KNOXVILLE — Last summer, architecture Adjunct Associate Professor Scott Wall led 14 students — four students from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, along with 10 students from two other U.S. universities — to Helsinki, Finland. The students’ journal entries, photographs and drawings from the trip will be part of an exhibition at the Heikkenen and Komonen Finnish Embassy in Washington, D.C.
The exhibition — a joint work of Wall; Jari Jetsonen, Finnish architectural photographer; and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen, architectural historian — will be on display Thursday, April 24 through Sunday, June 8.
The abroad program in Finland focused on the role of architecture within the Finnish national cultural identity. In order to learn about Finnish architecture, students spent a great deal of time examining Finnish culture, history and traditions.
The coursework for the program totaled 15 credit hours — a full semester of work within the College of Architecture and Design.
The summer coursework focused on developing an understanding of architecture through studies of Finnish culture and its impact on design culture, with particular emphasis on the work of two of the most celebrated architects of the early modern era in Finland –- Erik Bryggmann and Alvar Aalto.
Work was centered in facilities on Alvar Aalto’s Otaniemi campus of the Helsinki University of Technology (TKK). When not involved in on-site work or on field trips, students lived in student housing in the center of Helsinki at Domus Academica.
Extended field trips to southwestern Finland, Stockholm, Sweden, and St. Petersburg, Russia, and related exercises exposed students to other areas and aspects of Finland and the Baltic region.
Wall started the Finland abroad program as an associate professor at Tulane University in New Orleans in 2003. The exhibition will include work done by Tulane students as well.
This particular trip was the first official intercollegiate abroad program to Finland accepted by the UT Knoxville Programs Abroad Office. Wall and a group of students will return to Finland this summer.
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Contacts:
Scott Wall, architecture professor, (865) 974-8356, swall2@utk.edu
Kristi Hintz, UT media relations, (865) 974-3993, khintz@utk.edu