ROAD TEST “ ONCE

ROAD TEST “ ONCE YOU‘RE INSIDE, YOU DONT HEAR THE CITY... YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE, BUT ALSO ELEVATED”

DESTINATION DRIVE Modern life is white noise. Whichever way you turn, there is something asking for your attention – your smartphone, an advert, a TV screen, the sound of passing traffic. It can be hard to find real silence, especially in the urban jungle. It’s no surprise, then, that at a time of stimulus overload, a broad trend towards greater quietude and mindfulness is emerging. From New York’s Calm City mobile meditation trucks to smartphone apps that aim to get us offline and zoning out, silence might just be the new buzz. Finland, however, has always been at the forefront of the notion of mindfulness. This is a vast country where – proportionally – there’s a comfortable 2km 2 for every three citizens: plenty of room to stretch out, take a moment and breathe. Even the capital Helsinki sits on a peninsula in an extensive archipelago of islands, many of them covered in forest. Every Finn you meet will acknowledge that small talk isn’t their national sport. This may be a big country with a small population, but it’s also a place where two people are perfectly comfortable just sitting in silence. It’s not shyness; just cultural. It can catch the unwitting visitor off-guard. This serene capital is the perfect habitat for Jaguar’s all-electric luxury SUV, the I-PACE – the most silent Jaguar ever. With no sound save for the crunch of tyres on winter snow, the I-PACE glides into the heart of downtown Helsinki. Previous pages and below: The I-PACE at the Kamppi Chapel, a dedicated silent space in the centre of Helsinki designed by architect Mikko Summanen (below right). Above: treading lightly in the Finnish wilderness Market Square – the busiest commercial hub of the Finnish capital – might seem a perverse place to go in search of silence, but it’s not. The city council identified this spot as a place to build a striking new chapel – the Kamppi Chapel, which has become known as the Chapel of Silence. Its popularity goes well beyond churchgoers, and it can be seen in many ways as a temple to the Finnish love of silence. The idea of the chapel, initiated by Helsinki’s ex-deputy mayor Pekka Korpinen, is to give people a place to pause. “We studied the flow of people in this part of the city,” says Mikko Summanen of Helsinki-based K2S Architects, who designed the chapel along with colleagues Kimmo Lintula and Niko Sirola. “The form of the building is like a whirlpool or an island in that stream of people.” Covering a diminutive footprint of only 75m 2 , the sides of this entirely wooden structure soar upwards in an ever-expanding curve. Outside, traditional spruce is covered with a new bio-wax designed using nanotechnology to penetrate the grain and preserve it against the harsh Finnish winter. When you step inside, the effect is transformative. Light, perfectly flush lengths of alder wood roll upwards in one smooth, tactile surface. The city vanishes. “Once you’re inside, you don’t hear the city. Even the THE JAGUAR 27