Architect who shaped historic Turku wants another bridge

Architect Benito Casagrande, 84, wants a new bridge across the Aura River for Turku’s 800th anniversary in 2029, Yle reports. He says the proposed Pennisilta bridge would connect the city’s historic birthplace and bring business to buildings owned by the city.

“Turku was born at the intersection of the river and the road,” Casagrande says. Brahenkatu runs towards the Aura River and the Old Great Square, and he believes a new bridge would improve the connection.

A bridge with the same name once stood at the location but was destroyed in the Great Fire of Turku in 1827. Casagrande has promoted the idea for decades. He says the bridge is still needed, even though the nearby Library Bridge was completed in 2013.

Casagrande has developed Turku throughout his adult life. He renovated the buildings around the Old Great Square in the 1980s and designed the Hansakortteli shopping complex, as well as Datacity and Biocity. He also designed the Turku Sanomat newspaper’s premises in Artukainen and worked on the preservation of Casagrande House.

His interest in Turku’s history began during the final stages of his architecture studies. His daughters took him to the Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum, a museum in Turku, even though he lived nearby and had never visited it.

“When I saw the surroundings, it made me think that something was wrong in this city, because its historical dimension was so hidden,” Casagrande says.

That same day, the family explored the historic part of Turku around the Old Great Square. Casagrande decided to write his diploma thesis on highlighting Turku’s historical identity in the cityscape.

Casagrande’s parents both came from Italian families. His grandfather Antonio Casagrande founded a shop in Turku in 1912, and his father, Wilhelm Casagrande, was also a shopkeeper. His mother, Sylvi Calabrese, came from Pori and ran her own shop in Turku during her marriage.

Casagrande says he experienced racism and bullying because of his background in Finland after the world wars. He was extremely shy and tried to remain unnoticed. His mother encouraged him to pursue architecture after seeing drawings of detached houses with swimming pools that he had made.

He says his future wife, Irma Saarela, gave him confidence and changed his withdrawn personality. They met near the Cathedral Bridge on the day of his brother’s wedding in 1960.

Casagrande began working at architecture firms while still studying and says he worked 160 hours a month alongside his studies. He graduated from the Helsinki University of Technology in Otaniemi in 1970 after completing his architecture degree in four and a half years.

Several of his firm’s projects attracted public attention because of their scale. The term “Turku disease” became associated with the demolition of valuable historic buildings to make way for new ones.

Casagrande says similar, and sometimes more extensive, demolition took place in Helsinki. In the case of Hansakortteli, he says he prevented a complete transformation of the area.

“Demolishing a few warehouses is much less damage than flattening the entire block,” he says.