Housing Normcore

tavallisiakoteja01 — Olari © Hanna Meriläinen

I am extremely happy to announce that my first book, Tavallisia koteja (Ordinary Homes) will be published February 29 by Rakennustieto!

In an offspring project from the Strange Home Atlas I went searching for typical Finnish homes from the 20th century, wanting to document the everyday architecture of the last century, architecture that is so ordinary that it is hardly noticed, missing from glossy magazines and from interior decoration TV shows. The initial thought was that strange houses are so rare that there must be some special reason for this homogeneity of building and living. The homogeneity suggests a strong, generally accepted model for good living that changes very slowly, and I wanted to see how people actually live in those model homes, that were once, and some of them still are, examples of good life.