By Johanna Lemola

Entrepreneurs in the Tori Quarters roll up sleeves to breathe new dynamism into Helsinki’s historical city-centre blocks as the Old Town renews itself.

“I would seat my friends at the windows in candlelight,” Café Engel’s founder and owner Harri Sjöberg recalls, recounting his efforts almost a quarter century ago to attract people to the café. Opened a year earlier, the café had just acquired an alcohol licence and started keeping doors open to midnight.

Café Engel is one of the oldest businesses in the historical city blocks of Helsinki sandwiched between the Senate Square and the Market Square. Some buildings date back to the late 18th century, and major other ones were designed in the 19th century by architect C. L. Engel, who gives his name to the café.

Only a few years before Sjöberg took over the café located at the south side of the Senate Square, most of the block around it had housed the police headquarters. He recalls how tough it was to get business going: “I had to punch new holes in my belt, losing so much weight.”

Over the years, Sjöberg has witnessed the blocks welcome more and more business. Over the past few years, enlivenment of the blocks has been a strategic effort by the City of Helsinki. Today the effort is focused in a concept named Tori (“Square”) Quarters.

Entrepreneurs like Sjöberg are at the heart of the effort. He explains, “Any extra resources we can spare go into special events.” There has been theatre, music and philosophical talks. Every summer Café Engel joins hands with Kino Engel and Cinema Mondo in turning the adjacent inner courtyard into an outdoor cinema.

Last summer Café Engel organized a flee market for children. Sjöberg, a father of four, sees children as a key to the Tori Quarters and envisions: “Children define what families do. More and non-commercial programmes for children would be a fantastic way to bring in people!” He has been dreaming up a children’s house for the Quarters.

“There is no other place like this in Helsinki”

“We are far from the busiest buzz of city life here,” Sjöberg says pointing out the main challenge of the Tori Quarters. Summers and the Christmas season bring crowds of visitors to the Quarters, but the remaining eight months of the year are quiet, as the area largely houses offices and hardly anyone lives in the neighbourhood.

Yet, Café Engel could not be anywhere else. Sjöberg points to the living artwork of the Senate Square that plays at the café windows. “We provide an incredible cultural experience here,” he says. “There is no other place like this in Helsinki.”

For Tarja Castel, the Tori Quarters are just the right kind of environment. Unlike Sjöberg, she is one of the new entrepreneurs in the Quarters. Stating “Executive Yes Energizer” as her title, she runs urbanstory, a co-operative that focuses on a new kind of urban luxury. All of her products on offer – mostly high-end clothing and design items – carry strong stories of ecological responsibility and ethical values.

A shopping-mall environment would be the wrong fit for urbanstory’s philosophy. “I like to work with fashion, but I also want to be socially active,” says Castel, who used to run a fashion boutique closer to the commercial heart of the city. “Our idea at urbanstory is to build up awareness and have customers find us here.”

Castel makes the Tori Quarters work for her and vice versa. For example, she will add to the Quarters’ Christmas programme with her Christmas Event featuring 30-45 brands.

She is full of ideas for attracting customers. A pop-up sales section features a new brand every month. She has put exhibits into fitting rooms. She is about to join hands with Conbalance, a company that specializes in lighting systems based on brain research, and she plans to open a café corner offering organic products.

“This is a magnificent area and provides a setting that allows entrepreneurs to do a huge variety of different things,” Castel says.

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“We have the drive to make things happen”

There is much in common in the entrepreneurs of the Tori Quarters, and many of them actively work together. Tarja Castel of urbanstory has collaborated with Restaurant Sunn and recognizes Sunn for their efforts to support business. “They actively put together fun programmes,” she says.

For example, Sunn organized thematic dinners in connection of the Love & Anarchy Film Festival in September. The audience could follow up the documentary film “Mussels in Love” with a mussels menu and “Red Obsession” with Bordeaux red wines.

Many other entrepreneurs and businesses go an extra mile to make the Quarters increasingly attractive. Castel affirms, “We have the drive to make things happen. We have a really good feeling here.”

MadeBy Helsinki shares the philosophy of sustainability with urbanstory. Uniting 13 craftspeople, designers and artists, the co-operative focuses on modern craftsmanship and communal values. MadeBy Helsinki recently launched a workshop programme intended to activate customers in arts and crafts. For example, customers are encouraged to knit and use sowing machines in the MadeBy Helsinki space.

Globe Hope makes and markets clothing and accessories produced from recycled materials. E.R Wahlman, one of the original Tori Quarters businesses, has made and sold hats for the academia and men since 1901. The one-Michelin-star restaurant Luomo mixes local foods, small producers’ products, wild nature and world tastes, and the downstairs Pure Bistro focuses on pure ingredients. The brewery restaurant Bryggeri crafts German-type beers on site.

There are today close to 60 businesses in the Old Town of Helsinki. There will be space for about 40 more once the Tori Quarters project is finished.

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