THE BONGA CASTLE is an exciting, even peculiar sight in the heart of the idyllic small town of Loviisa, immediately south of the church. Its original design was made by Mr. Th. Hjelt, an architect from Helsinki. After the Finnish civil war, the house ended up owned by the Baumgartner family. Its Jugendstil from with its red roofed towels was modified according to the design of architect Hilding Ekelund into a granite castle along the lines of Italian neo-Classicism and functionalism.
In 1987 the estate came into its present owners Riitta Nelimarkka and Jaakko Seeck. The worn-out patrician castle has been renovated in the course of the years, with reverence to its old style. The house has been heated ecologically with wood chips since 1987. Also the engineering of the building has been completely redone. The church-side wing of the big main building now serves as atelier and production spaces. The south-side of the building has been renovated into an art museum-gallery that is open to the public. Nearly two hundred of Nelimarkka´s works are displayed there: drawings, aquarelles, graphic art, collages, woolen and flax reliefs, textile pictures, paintings, art and poetry books, photographs and animated films.
At Bonga Castle in Loviisa, 80km from Helsinki, is my second studio. My third, fourth and fifth travel with me on planes and trains, in dreams. If Loviisa is a city, then Helsinki is New York. So small and peaceful is Loviisa.
Even if I arrive a nervous wreck and sick of rushing around, at Bonga time stands still in a sphere, a “ball”, and a strange peace is traced on my soul. The more-than-a-century-old building exudes history. Even if you ask it nothing, the walls answer back. An ideal setting for coming up with ideas. The haunting of the building is incomparable and hilarious. And yet, sometimes during the night, you can hear teardrops falling. Bonga is strangely large, outright pompous in appearance, but surprisingly well-suited to being a half-mad stronghold of art. There is a nice contrast.
Renovating the building has taken us more than 20 years. Or actually it has given us those years. It is heated ecologically with woodchips, a solution we have not regretted for a moment. Half of the house is studio, working and storage spaces. Half is a whitewashed gallery, where the works are hung, mostly on aesthetic grounds. No chronology… “Time is an illusion”. (Einstein). Time is not a line and “change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal”. (Schopenhauer).
Bonga castle is itself a person, a myrtle philosopher standing on stone feet. Its silence is magical, but it is equally lovable when the whole edifice and gardens are filled with friends, visitors, musicians… With adults, youths and children. Actually it is always precisely then that its most beautiful flowers burst into bloom.
