Bok House

Brief Information

Bock House began as a merchant’s house with a shop downstairs and living quarters upstairs, and later acquired a facade designed with Senate Square and state authority in mind. This change of role can be read in the building itself: originally it had two floors and an attic, but in 1816–1819 it was raised to three floors and remodeled in the Empire style as the official residence of the Finnish governor-general.

Later the house became the city hall: it housed the city court and an assembly hall, while the eastern wing on the Katariinankatu side was used by the police, the detective bureau, and the city jail. Today the basement level is occupied by shops, while the remaining premises belong to the municipality and are used for representative functions. So it is useful to view the building not as a frozen monument, but as a house that changed its degree of publicness several times.

What to notice right away

It is worth comparing the house’s lower commercial logic with its ceremonial shell. The first floor was originally merchant Bock’s shop, and after the reconstruction the facade facing Senate Square received Ionic columns beneath a pediment and a balcony. These details do more than decorate the building: they show the moment when a private urban house began to be adapted into an official residence.

Another focus is the different sides of the building. The eastern wing on the Katariinankatu side is connected not with representation, but with city service: it housed a police post, a detective bureau, and a jail. After the 1985–1988 renovation, the house’s layout and color schemes conceived in Engel’s time were restored. So it is not only the columns and pediment that matter, but also the building’s calmer structure: it recalls how one address combined a shop, housing, a residence, a city hall, and municipal premises.