Diana Park (Kolmikulma)

First there was a forty-centimeter statuette; a large bronze park sculpture was commissioned for the square from it. The sculptor, who was living in Hungary at the time, cast it there, and the city paid for the commission together with the stone pedestal. Later, arc-shaped water jets appeared in front of the pedestal, repeating the throw of the spear. The spear has to be replaced: passersby hang from it, and the metal bends or breaks.

On city maps, this square is called Kolmikulma—“the Triangle.” The name describes the plot between three streets, where paths and benches let people shorten their route or stop briefly. Diana Park is an unofficial name. City residents transferred it to the square from the bronze woman throwing a spear.

In nineteen twenty-four, the sculptor Yrjö Liipola made a forty-centimeter statuette of Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt. Four years later, city officials looking for an ornament for Kolmikulma commissioned a large park sculpture based on that model. The city allocated eighty-five thousand marks to Liipola and another five thousand for the pedestal. This was a purchased work by a professional sculptor, not a gift to the city.

Liipola was living in Hungary at the time, and he cast the figure there in bronze. When the commission was ready, he informed the Helsinki Finance Board that the city could collect the statue. In the same letter, the sculptor confronted the officials with another decision already made: he renamed Diana “Tellervo, daughter of Tapio.” The buyer had already allocated money for a goddess with one name and received her with another.

In Finnish folk poetry, Tellervo is the daughter of Tapio, master of the forest, and guardian of his forest herd; hunters tried to win her favor. Liipola linked her to Diana, the Roman huntress, but retained the difference in their weapons: Diana was traditionally depicted with a bow, while Tellervo here throws a spear.

The city accepted the new name, and in nineteen twenty-nine the sculpture was unveiled in Kolmikulma. City residents continued to call it Diana and, after it, named the whole square Diana Park. The figure’s official name remained Finnish, while the place’s colloquial name remained Roman.

The spear has to be replaced from time to time: people hang from it, and it bends or breaks. During the reconstruction of two thousand seven, city planners added jets in front of the pedestal that repeat the arc of the throw. The museum label reads “Tellervo, daughter of Tapio,” while in city usage it is Diana Park, and between them remains this spear.