Helsinki Central Station: Eliel Saarinen's Granite Gateway to the City

Most people meet Helsinki Central Station in a hurry. They come up from the metro, drag a suitcase across the hall, or run for a commuter train with a coffee in hand.

It is worth slowing down for a few minutes. Behind the departure boards is one of the defining buildings of Nordic architecture, designed by Eliel Saarinen and opened in 1919, just as Finland was becoming an independent country.

The red granite arch, the clock tower and the four stone giants holding glowing lamps have become a kind of shorthand for the city itself. Here is how the station came to look the way it does, and what to notice when you pass through.

A station built on a filled-in bay

Helsinki's railway arrived in 1862, when the first line to Hämeenlinna opened. The original station was a modest building by Carl Albert Edelfelt, sized for a capital of roughly 20,000 people.

The site itself was unpromising. The station stands on the former Kluuvinlahti bay, a muddy inlet that was filled in during the 19th century, and bedrock lies some 20 to 30 metres down.

By the turn of the century the city had grown several times over, and the old building was far too small. The railway administration opened a competition for the facades of a new central railway station in Helsinki, and in 1904 the young Eliel Saarinen was named the winner.

The design that changed after the competition

Saarinen's winning entry looked very different from the building we see today. It was firmly National Romantic, with heavy roofs, a sharp spire, small towers and sculpted bears guarding the entrance.

Critics, led by the architects Sigurd Frosterus and Gustaf Strengell, called it old-fashioned. A railway station, they argued, stood for the modern age and should not dress up like a medieval castle. Magazines even printed cartoons of the bears leaping off the facade to chase passengers.

Saarinen stayed out of the public argument, but he listened. He travelled through Europe, looked closely at new German architecture, and redrew the whole scheme. The bears disappeared, the roofs became calmer, and the great arched window grew to dominate the front.

The result is usually described as late Art Nouveau with a strong rationalist streak. It still has the weight of granite, but the ornament is pared back and the structure is honest about what it is.

Granite outside, concrete vaults inside

The main facade is clad in red granite from Hanko, on Finland's south coast. Above the entrance, a huge arch frames a tall window that floods the central hall with daylight.

Inside, that hall is a barrel-vaulted space of about 780 square metres. The vaults are reinforced concrete, and they were among the earliest monumental concrete structures in Finland.

Getting the building to stand on soft ground was a project in itself. Around ten thousand wooden piles were driven into the old seabed, while only the tower's supporting walls go all the way down to bedrock.

Look up as you cross the hall and you can see how the vaults shape the building's outline from outside. It is one of the clearest examples in the country of structure and appearance working together.

The Lantern Bearers and the clock tower

The four figures flanking the main entrance are the Lyhdynkantajat, or Lantern Bearers. They were carved in granite to designs by the sculptor Emil Wikström and stand in two pairs, each holding a spherical lamp that is lit after dark.

Locals often call them the Stone Men. The national rail operator VR has used them in its advertising since 2002, and they are regularly dressed up for big occasions, from ice hockey championship celebrations to face masks during the pandemic.

To the east rises the clock tower, 48.5 metres high and topped by a globe carried on winged wheels, a symbol of the railways. When it was completed it was the tallest tower in Helsinki.

The four clock faces each measure three metres across. The tower has a long history of its own: it served as a lookout for air surveillance during the Second World War and reopened to visitors in 2025, after a lift that Saarinen had planned but never got built was finally installed.

Wars, a fire and a long road to opening

The facade was largely finished when the First World War broke out in 1914, and work stopped. On the orders of Tsar Nicholas II, the unfinished halls were used as a Russian military hospital in 1915 and 1916.

The station was finally inaugurated on 5 March 1919, still incomplete inside. Fifteen years had passed since the competition, and a building meant as a terminus of the Russian Empire's western rail network opened as the main station of an independent Finland.

Its later life was not quiet either. Soviet bombing in February 1944 damaged the station, and in June 1950 a fire tore through the wooden attic. The repairs gave the station the heated kiosk hall that is still there.

Saarinen moved to the United States in 1923, where he became a central figure at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. The Helsinki train station remains one of his best-known works at home.

Details worth noticing on your way through

Start outside on Kaivokatu. Stand back far enough to see the arch, the Stone Men and the tower together, then step closer to look at the cut granite and the green copper details at the roofline.

On the side facing Railway Square is a separate entrance to the presidential lounge. It was completed in 1911 for the Russian emperor and is now reserved for the President of Finland, with furniture designed by Saarinen.

The glass roof over the main platforms was only added in 2001, although a covered train shed was part of the original idea. Gaps between the tracks let rain soak into the ground so the old wooden piles stay wet and do not rot.

The building is also simply busy. Around 200,000 people pass through on a typical day, which makes it the most visited building in Finland, and it is often listed among the most beautiful railway stations in the world.

Using the station today

Helsinki main station is the terminus for all commuter trains in the capital region and for long-distance trains to cities such as Tampere, Turku and Oulu. The overnight trains to Lapland also leave from here.

Getting from Helsinki Central Station to the airport is straightforward. The I and P commuter trains run around the Ring Rail Line in opposite directions and reach Helsinki Airport station in roughly 30 minutes, with frequent departures through the day.

The metro stops directly beneath the building, many tram lines pass right outside, and the Kamppi bus terminal is about one stop west. Luggage lockers, cafés and the hotel in the former railway offices make it an easy place to start or finish a day in the city.

Exploring nearby architecture

The station sits at the heart of a remarkable cluster of buildings. The Ateneum art museum faces Railway Square, the curving shape of Kiasma is a short walk to the west, and the National Museum is about ten minutes away along Mannerheimintie.

If the debate around Saarinen's first design interests you, compare it with Stockholm City Hall, which took National Romanticism in a very different direction across the Baltic.

For a closer look at the contemporary end of the neighbourhood, read our piece on Kiasma, Steven Holl's museum of contemporary art, a short walk from the station.

And to keep exploring the city, browse our directory of notable buildings in Helsinki, from old market halls to modernist office blocks.