JYUnity

The Seminaarinmäki campus is a well-known tourist attraction due to its multilayered cultural history. The Ministry of Education and Culture has, on proposal by the Finnish Heritage Agency, named Seminaarinmäki as the first Finnish candidate for a European Heritage label. You can come and admire the area’s architecture, history and nature on your own but you can also use the mobile guides available on the University Museum’s website.

Over the decades, the oldest JYU campus has become a unique cultural entity of international renown. Together, the buildings of Constantin Kiseleff, Alvar Aalto and Arto Sipinen form a multilayered view of architecture. The European and Finnish development of education from the late 19th century until today can be seen concretely in its park-like campus, which organically connects with the city centre.

In the 1970s, buildings designed by architect Arto Sipinen were built in the area. The new buildings were placed amid the older ones. They are made of red brick and their metal parts are tinted blue as a reflection of the blue decorations used in the older buildings.

Arto Sipinen’s mark can also be seen in the red brick buildings of the early 1980s Mattilanniemi campus on the southeastern side of Seminaarinmäki as well as in the white buildings of the 1990s Ylistönrinne campus.

The 2000s school of architecture is represented by the Teacher Training School from 2002, designed by the architect office Lahdelma & Mahlamäki. The latest addition to the Seminaarinmäki campus, Ruusupuisto, was introduced in 2015 and it houses the Faculty of Education and Psychology, the Finnish Institute for Educational Research and the Open University.

Thousands of young students from all over the world spend most of their time here and, therefore, the campus area has been and will be designed for them. The campus offers a glimpse of the best architectural traditions of different eras. The campus also provides students an excellent learning environment.

“Seminaarinmäki has always highlighted the cooperative efforts of students and scholars.”

Therefore, the JYU campus can be seen as both a landscape and a space to live in. Together with the area’s buildings and the students’ social circles it contains different meanings and impressions. The gardens, intersecting walking paths, student events, lectures and the aroma from the cafeterias create memories from one generation to another.

The campus will surely leaves it mark on students as well as visitors. People like to revisit the campus later and they will always be touched by it, as one visitor shares:

“A guided tour of the campus made me very emotional. We pointed out the buildings to each other and old memories came alive.”

See the campus area introduction video