- Orange or in Finnish Oranssi, is a youth organization that provides for example apartments for students and for young people, that wouldn't have a change to rent apartment otherwise. To be honest, I don't have a clear picture about this organization, it somewhat mysterious in my mind and internet doesn't provide any more details than the apartment renting business. The only image in my mind dates back to the beginning of the nineties, when my cousin used to live in one of the apartments rented by Orange. It was an old cow stable...lovely...

- I wasn't aware that they will demolish this old building and so I was quite late here. Part of the building was gone already and there was almost no interesting details around. Just rubble...

- Still the interesting part of this exploration was the fact, that how are you going to get into the building, that is located in the heart of Helsinki. People walking constantly past the building, border guard on the other side of the street and a fence that you would have to climb to get into the demolition area. I scouted this place during a day and there certainly wasn't away to get in without somebody noticing you right away. Even my scouting started to raise some suspicions, when I noticed one person staring me from his apartment window. Now I hear you saying that night time would be the best time, right?

- Wrong, it was a weekend, meaning that people are celebrating and going to a restaurants and bars. So the traffic wouldn't be any less even during a night time. So I came to the conclusion, that during the early morning hours would be the best time to visit. At around 4am, most of the restaurants would be closing their doors and people would be starting to head for home. So I came in front of the building at around 5.30am and there was almost no people walking around. Most of them had already reached their homes and were sleeping. 

- I got over the fence easily, as somebody else had visited the building also and build a ladder leading over the fence. It was still quite dark and the ground was filled with all sort of rubble. No way of walking quietly. As I was photographing inside of the building I started to hear conversation coming from the street. It went something like this: "What's that?" "What?" then they stopped talking and I toke another picture and the conversation started again: "That light!" "It's coming out of the that building!" "I wonder who's in there?"

- I do hate to use photoflash during a night. It's just gives a signal kilometers away, that somebody's here. These are the last pictures from this place, as the whole building was torn down by mid-October 2003.

NOTE: I received an kind email, informing me that the pictures that are here, are actually not from the part that Oranssi used. Their premises were located in a smaller building, along with this bigger building. By the time I got here, the smaller building was already demolished and I didn't take any pictures from the junk pile. This building has been abandoned since the beginning of the year 2003 and in the nineties there was a school here. Lately few bands have been practising here, until they too abandoned the place, when the water was flooding in the basement. I'll just leave the headline as it is, to show that even newspapers don't know everything, as they claimed the building to belong to the Oranssi.

- The graffiti's you see in the pictures are not all made by illegal vandals. The youth organization did let the youth to shape the place like they wanted. Meaning that you could put a graffiti on the wall if you liked. Still some of these graffiti's were so poorly made, that I wonder were they made when the building was still active, or are they made by the visitors who had build the ladder leading over the fence.

- The trip wasn't a total loss. Yet another bathroom picture, but this time the most important part of the bathroom, was lying on the stairs leading to the building.

- Dangerous place to visit during the dark hours. You cannot see it from the picture, but the floor ends within a few meters ahead. 

- Helsinki, in the year 2003.