The buildings

The old cottages Topp

There is something special about old houses. The creak from wooden floorboards, the snapping in the walls and the unique scent characterizing every house. It’s a special feeling to look out through the wavy glass panes and know that people have looked out through these same windows for decades to see what the weather was like and from which direction the wind blew, who was coming down the village road or to simply rejoice in the first bullfinch of the winter. Old buildings have a soul. And surely, we can say that the old buildings are the soul of Stundars. Come rain or shine, spring sun or autumn storm, they stand there in the Ostrobothnian colours, Italian red and yellow ochre. And of course, the weathered, grey boards of hay sheds and crofts.

These buildings are moved here from villages around the municipality of Korsholm-Mustasaari and from the area around Vaasa town. At Stundars, we’ll find the big, stately, yellow Hemmer House, once the childhood home of the Swedish-speaking Finnish poet and author Jarl Hemmer (1893-1945). Today it houses the Restaurant Hemmer and conference and exhibition venues. At Stundars we can also find the traditional red Ostrobothnian cottages housing a post office, a baking cottage and a general store, and long lines of outhouses containing among other a café and a small shop. The small, grey cottages where the craftsmen still watch the crowds through their windows during the Artisan’s days. The cottages and workshops are furnished to depict the turn of the century in 1900 and they all have their special story.

Text: Maria Österåker in the book ”Stundars” from 2013

Stundars is a large open-air museum in Solf village, Korsholm municipality, Ostrobothnia, Finland. The museum tells the stories of what life was like for the peasantry, craftsmen and lower social classes on the Swedish-speaking countryside, from Oravais in the north to Pörtom in the south, during the period of 1870-1920.