Solution 239–246: Finland: The Welfare Game

Welcome to Finland, a young land of rapid aging, where newly founded institutions are already outmoded and geographic impediments are a constant crippling agent. As part of Ingo Niermann’s Solution Series, Solution Finland: The Welfare Game by architect Martti Kalliala with writer and curator Jenna Sutela and architect Tuomas Toivonen, addresses the Nordic country’s numerous predicaments.

The three authors offer readers eight and a half solutions to their native country’s quandaries, ranging from the absurd (the implementation of fiction-mongering emissaries to boost tourism) to the earnest, if far-reaching (the repurposing of the country to host nuclear waste). Solution Finland elucidates the northern country’s modern history as a nation under construction, proposing that its identity remain a malleable myth, in which designing a more tenable future is the conduit for crucial adaptation.