About this site
Colonel Hugo Standertskjöld, who had made great fortunes from the armaments industry, bought the Karlberg estate on the shore of Vanajavesi in 1883 and had a prestigious manor environment laid out, encompassing a park of over 70 hectares. The design was the responsibility of the Swedish brothers Erik and Karl Zötterläf. Construction of the park began in the 1880s and was largely completed in 1910. The colonel initiated enormous construction works that extended beyond the buildings to the surrounding landscape. A parkscape was created close to the buildings, and the area between Aulangonvuori and the buildings was formed into a parkland forest. The main building was constructed by enlarging and altering the old Karlberg main building on the site of the present hotel. Even more substantial than the buildings was the earthworks, in which a prestigious English-style park was created. The garden became a masterwork of its time, attracting admirers from afar. Since the current nature park area contained two large bogs, the colonel had them turned into artificial lakes, Joutsenlampi and Metsälampi. One of the ponds also has an artificial island, though only for the use of birds. The two artificial islands intended for residents were constructed in Vanajavesi. All this required extensive cart roads, walking paths and the plantings they needed, totalling about 14 kilometres. Stonework was especially favoured by Colonel Standertskjöld, and the area has numerous stone walls and terraces. In addition, an impressive granite ruin-castle was built. The most remarkable stone construction was on Aulangonvuori itself, where a 33-metre-high granite observation tower was erected in 1907. From the base of the tower, steep stone steps descend to the so-called Bear Cave, where Robert Stigell's sculpture 'The Bear Family' is placed. Lighter park structures included various summerhouses and so-called temples, of which the Rose Valley pavilion and the Temple of Happiness remain. During Standertskjöld's time, the area included, among other things, a zoo. Aulanko and especially its parkland forest had already during the colonel's time been an open tourist area for all residents of Hämeenlinna, which is why the transfer of the area to the city's ownership occurred relatively smoothly. A restaurant open to the public was established in the manor buildings. The main building, however, burned down in January 1928. Hämeenlinna city built a new hotel building on the site of the burned building, which ten years later had to give way to the current main building. In 1938, the current functionalist main building, designed by Märta Blomstedt and Matti Lampen, was completed. The Aulanko area is part of Hämeenlinna's national urban park and, according to a government decree, belongs to the nationally valuable landscape areas (the Vanajavesi valley and Aulanko) and to the nationally significant built cultural environments (Aulanko Park).
Official description (Museovirasto) — machine-translated from Finnish
- Municipality
- Hämeenlinna