Bryggman got the project based on a winning entry in an invited competition. The school comprises three main wings grouped around a rectangular courtyard. The middle wing, a two-storey block running north-south, comprises the school’s large brick-floored entrance hall, which is also used for breaks, and a teachers’ lounge upstairs. Classrooms are in the single-storey southern wing as well as in the upper floors of the three-storey northern wing, which also comprises the dining room on the ground floor. The floor level of the northern wing is half a storey higher than that of the central wing.

Yellow brick has been used sensitively throughout, and its varying shades enliven the façades. Some of the brickwork has been laid in a dogtooth pattern under the eaves. Small balconies are a repeated motif; above the south entrance there are two balconies and in the northern class wing there are French balconies.

A sports building by Einari Teräsvirta was built west of the school building in the 1970s, and it continued Bryggman’s original concept.

Text: Mikko Laaksonen