Both factors permeate Helsinki today, lending a quiet but distinct eccentricity. Much of the public art is unlike anywhere else. The city's signature sculpture, Havis Amanda, shows a naked woman surrounded by barking seals. Finns also evolved a peculiar architectural style from the 1890s to the 1930s, a sort of Brooding Art Nouveau. Its most famous example is the Eero Saarinen-designed railway station, an airy vault flanked by towering statues that appear either benevolent or baleful depending on the light.
Nightlife also leans toward the odd.
Tourists who are American political junkies should be sure to sample one perpetual favorite of Helsinki nightlife, the bar known as Vanha Ylioppilastalo, which Bill Clinton reportedly visited while a student en route to Moscow. It can be unsettling, but easily resolved. Although home to half a million people, Helsinki is compact and easy to walk. Favorites include the Tempeliaukirkko church , which is hollowed out of solid rock, and the Kiasma museum of modern art. Other notable art museums are the Sinebrychoff and the Amos Anderson, and Helsinki has a wide assortment of small and peculiar museums, including the Museum of Worker Housing and the Museum of Street Construction.