Laulupuut - Helsinki, Finland - Figurative Public Sculpture on Waymarking.com

"The totem-like sculpture consists of three parts. The pike at the centre has alder branches entwined around it. Next to the pike are two towers made of the lids of concert grand pianos and piles of firewood.

The 13-meter high artwork measures six metres in width and nine in length, and is made of aluminium and steel. The making of the 50,000-tonne sculpture required more skill and time than anyone would have thought.

The head of the pike and the five firewood piles were cast at the Lapinlahden Taidevalu Oy’s foundry. This stage of the project alone took two years.

The head of the pike is made of 70 separate cast pieces. Sinisalo recalls that 1,600 kg of plaster was used to make the moulds.

The head, weighing 700 kg, and the firewood piles were welded together using aluminium. Sinisalo does not dare to think of the total amount of hours spent on the welding work.

The sides of the pike were made of a 40 mm thick sheet while the tail was made of a 20 mm thick sheet.

Sculptor Reijo Hukkanen’s Laulupuut sculpture won the 2010 Helsinki Music Centre Art Competition, which received nearly 800 entries in total.

Hukkanen got the idea for his sculpture from ‘The Pike’s Song,’ a poem by Aaro Hellaakoski. It was first published in the anthology Ice Mirror in 1928, and is one of the most discussed poems in 20th-century Finnish literature. In the enigmatic stanzas, a fish is singing a hymn and biting on a red cone at the top of a fir tree.

The poem, which Hukkanen had heard on the radio as a schoolboy, came back to his mind when he was sketching entries for the competition."

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Name or use 'Unknown' if not known: Laulupuut Figure Type: Animal Artist Name or use 'Unknown' if not known: Reijo Hukkanen Date created or placed or use 'Unknown' if not known: Placed in 2012 Materials used: Aluminium and steel Location: Helsinki Music Centre

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