Exploration is a vital tool to articulate the islander’s connection with the broader world. It enables one to transcend the confines imposed by the sea and to escape societal and cultural inertia that occasionally feels stifling and without exit. It grants the freedom to roam unencumbered, like a flâneur, through locales with diverse perspectives on life, space, nature, the city, and community. This experience cannot be substituted for the intellectual insights that literature offers or the tidbits that the Internet sometimes provides. Nothing can replace the enlightening moments brought forth by the tangible presence of the unfamiliar or the unknown—those flashes of clarity, those novel sensations, akin to glimpses of alternative lives encountered in a district of Quito, a café in the Old City of Jerusalem, a museum in Berlin, or an alley in Malabo. Upon returning to the island, travellers often arrive filled with fresh ideas. Some quickly fade away, submerged by local customs, while others unexpectedly flourish.
One such journey was undertaken in 1960 by Canarian architect Vicente Saavedra alongside his peers from the Barcelona School of Architecture, visiting various locations across Europe. Amidst the advent of the welfare state, these young individuals sought to explore emerging construction trends fostered by the post-war European social model. They travelled to Finland, where they immersed themselves in the works of Alvar Aalto and visited other projects involving the Finnish architect, such as the garden city of Tapiola, located to the west of Helsinki. This site exemplifies the coexistence of nature with a humanity-focused approach to construction, considering human needs for comfortable spaces conducive to thinking, contemplation, shelter, and social engagement. Years later, upon returning to the Canary Islands, Saavedra collaborated with Javier Díaz-Llanos to design the Ten-Bel tourist complex, incorporating some of the insights gleaned from Finland.
Inspired by this journey, ‘To Create a Paradise’ emerged, a documentary directed by filmmaker David Baute, based on a concept by writer Alejandro Krawietz, who co-wrote the project alongside Baute and Nayra Sanz Fuentes. Krawietz lends his voice to the documentary, which recently premiered at TEA and will be broadcast on Canarian Regional Television on a date yet to be appointed. Originally, Krawietz envisioned the film as a journey with Saavedra, retracing the places he had visited in 1960, but after Saavedra’s passing in 2021, the project shifted focus to Krawietz’s trip to Finland to discover the architectural legacy of Alvar Aalto and ponder on inhabiting space.
With a gentle voice, camera in hand and shots of a notebook filled with notes, Krawietz engages in a dialogue with the departed Saavedra during his exploration of Helsinki and its surroundings, filmed in a soft, autumnal glow that nearly allows one to feel the essence of the Nordic nation. Here, the Canarian writer visits the Alvar Aalto Foundation headquarters, situated on a hill in an area that previously held no interest, where he identified opportunities in the natural landscape. His tools—scissors, pencils—appear as though he has only just stepped away from his work. The house he occupied between 1936 and 1955, designed with his wife Aino, who was also an architect and collaborator until her death in 1949, still gives the impression of being inhabited. It showcases a modern and comfortable environment—a harmonious blend of innovation, comfort, and simplicity. Similarly, the Kulttuuritato—House of Culture—built at the behest of the Communist Party of Finland, serves as both its headquarters and a community gathering spot, as well as an auditorium for the city.
“After the war, the focus was not simply on constructing houses, but on fostering coexistence,” architect Hannu Kiiskilä shares with Krawietz, appearing in the documentary next to a social housing project he designed in a Helsinki neighbourhood. This construction, featuring concrete and wooden cladding to enhance energy efficiency, incorporates communal areas to encourage social interaction. An embodiment of the welfare state, “the last attainable utopia,” as Krawietz describes.
“The manner of construction is a reflection of coexistence. I feel this journey has at least solidified that certainty for me,” the writer states in the documentary. This theme is echoed during a visit to the garden city of Tapiola, where the vitality of the homes interacts with the changing seasons and encompassing forests. An unforgettable experience, as recounted by a British couple who established their first home there, is shared with Krawietz. However, the journey through the documentary bears a poignant aspect—the Ten-Bel project that Saavedra envisioned years after his European exploration, deeply informed by that accumulated wisdom. The imagery of Ten-Bel serves as a recollection of the island’s past. From the beautiful archive footage of the holiday complex designed with consideration for the local landscape to the present-day ruins explored by Krawietz and Saavedra, which appear at the documentary’s outset as a metaphor for the collapse of a utopia. An abandoned, fragmented space symbolises a fragmented idea on an island that succumbed to chaos, speculation, and relentless exploitation of the land.
The writer cautions: although Ten-Bel was born from a dream of possibility, the Spain of that time was shaped by the initial foundations of the 1959 Stabilisation Plan, which he describes as “a manifestation of liberal fascism” that irreversibly impacted methods of operation in this country. “Your journey, Vicente, inspired visions of another potential Spain, but that Spain never materialised. Subsequently, the Plan began to impose its dictates: recurrent crises, industrial dependency, chronic unemployment, and systemic precariousness.” This does not imply that the social democratic ideal has escaped the clutches of capitalist greed and inequality. As the documentary highlights, real estate speculation also permeates Helsinki, and other forms of exclusion, such as racism, similarly affect the city. This reality prevents Mohammed Sharif Bashiru, a migrant taxi driver who navigates the city with the writer, from accessing social housing, despite over a decade of requests and a rental fee of 1,100 euros for a 21 square metre flat. “Access to paradise is barred. Work or residence permits hinder the capacity to live. Without them, there is no possibility of coexistence,” Krawietz’s voice articulates.
Yet, this does not diminish the weight of our urban tragedy within island reality, characterised by disordered landscapes, arising from the neglect of those who could have instigated change yet opted for the benefits of chaos. What was left undone perpetuated their ability to act without constraint. This reflects the plight of islands devoid of collective ambitions.
In this regard, this documentary offers a perspective of respite. Crafted with sensitivity, it attempts to impose order on chaos through poetic narration. A journey to regain breath. Contemporary. Evoking the utopia we might aspire to reach. Disrupting ambient noise with moments of introspection and pause. For there may come a time when realisation is possible.
