Finland’s Sauna Scene As Hot As Ever

Helsinki’s public saunas refused to throw in the towel to developers and are flourishing. Paul Hirons visits trendy spas and tiny shacks, and makes a dash to Lapland

In the locker room of Sauna Hermanni, one of the few remaining public saunas in Helsinki, I bumped into Paul, an octogenarian who was cooling down after his weekly steam clean, reading his newspaper dressed only in a saggy white vest. I asked him why he came here every week, and after a moment’s contemplation, he said with a shrug: “I couldn’t imagine life without it.”

For Finns, life without sauna is unthinkable, but for it to survive against competing leisure activities and an ever-quickening pace of life, it has had to adapt and diversify.

There was a time when there was a public sauna on every corner of the Finnish capital; they were like the city’s social clubs. Then, during a period of rapid post-war redevelopment, most closed their doors permanently as new apartment blocks incorporated their own saunas and basic washing facilities for residents. By 2010 there were 1.5 million private saunas across the country; about one sauna for every 3.5 people. (https://www.royalspacolumbia.com/)

Combination Of Renewed Civic Pride

Thanks to a combination of renewed civic pride (Helsinki was World Design Capital in 2012), urban regeneration and entrepreneurship there’s now a sense that sauna is being rebranded. Two new public waterside saunas – Löyly and Helsinki Allas – have been designed to not only encourage a younger generation to embrace the traditional and inherently social benefits of public saunas, but also to attract tourists who step off the docking cruise ships looking for something quintessentially Finnish during their brief stay.

These two saunas both boast the sleek, angular lines of Nordic architecture, and are built from ecologically friendly materials. They are prominently positioned on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, sitting proudly as the privately funded flagships of regenerated industrial wastelands. There are bars, there are restaurants. There are even beaches. It’s like a sauna version of London’s South Bank.

These boutique saunas may have added diversity to Helsinki’s sauna scene, but look hard enough and there are still the authentic public saunas dotted around the city that have been keeping the tradition going for decades.

Open since 1953, Sauna Hermanni was – prior to the opening of Löyly and Allas – one of only four public saunas left in Helsinki. It harks back to a golden age of communal saunas and is a shrine to mid-century furniture and decoration, with a 30-berth sauna for men and a 20-berther for women. Sitting in the basement of a nondescript apartment block, I entered the sauna complex and was immediately transported back in time. As I walked through the reception area and into the locker rooms and saunas themselves, I spotted old magazines littered on mid-century coffee tables and pictures of Finnish pin-ups adorning the wood-panelled walls.