Planetskier: Elite school swimming hall

Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu or SYK is an elite school, known for the highest grades their students get. But, they also serve the broader public with their open-for-everyone swimming hall. I actually had not realized I was still missing visits to some public swimming pools in Helsinki, but I was.

The visit was nice, in the evening it pools and saunas were almost empty. Parking was a bit of a question mark, not sure if I parked on a legal spot or not. I think there's multiple entries to the school, perhaps I entered from the staff entrance and that's why there were "for staff only" signs. Oh well, no ticket.

The only downside of the swimming pool was the constant thumping noises, as the pool and saunas are in the ground floor, just under the second floor gym hall. Oh well, minor issues. But it was pretty loud :-)

The school is also a prime example of brutalist architecture, inside and outside. For instance, the dressing rooms walls are just bare grey concrete. Nice refreshing change to other things I've been to, but I'm not sure I'd want to spend significant time in this building...

There's one 25 meter pool and one kid/practice pool with somewhat warmer water.

The pool isn't open all the time, only four days in a week in the evenings (longer on Saturday).

Here's the link to their page.

The swimming-pool-in-school concept also reminded me very much of my old Korso high school swimming pool. It was a nice one, sadly they closed it. (Both the school and the swimming hall...)

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and

This article was originally published in the Planetskier Blogspot article series.