Ahlströmin perheen säätiöt

Mairea Foundation arranges guided tours and is in charge of the collections and archives in the house.

The building and the interior was designed by Alvar and Aino Aalto and was completed in 1939. Maire Gullichsen founded Mairea Foundation in 1980. The aim of the foundation is to preserve the cultural values of Villa Mairea. Three employees work at the foundation.

Antti Ahlström purchased Noormarkku Works in 1870. Harry Gullichsen became the head of the company in early 1930’s after his father-in-law Walter Ahlström, who was Antti’s son. At the time Ahlström was one of the largest industrial companies in Finland. During three generations, the Ahlström family built three residential buildings in the Works area, Isotalo, Havulinna and Villa Mairea, and also a number of other buildings, such as the head office, Club and houses for the officials and workers. Industrial activity in the area has ended but the buildings like the old sawmill and forge remain. Noormarkku Works remains in the ownership of the Ahlström family.

The Eva Ahlström foundation is a family foundation that believes in action, collaboration and structural change.

The Eva Ahlström Foundation was founded in the spring of 2010 by a group of fifth-generation female heirs of Eva and Antti Ahlström, the nineteenth-century Finnish industrialist couple. When the Ahlström businesses expanded globally in modern times, family members talked about their desire to create a platform, in which the family could help the communities where the businesses’ operated. The platform became the Eva Ahlström foundation, our medium for continuing Eva and Antti’s legacy.

Today the foundation is proud to have worked with several inspirational organizations, each one unique and devoted to improving human well-being. Each project and organization has proven the complexity of societal issues, but also the power of concerted action for effecting change. Eva and Antti Ahlström focused on helping the most vulnerable through investing in health and education. The foundation continues this by investing in the wellbeing of the most vulnerable in the society, women and children, who according to studies are the ones most affected by poverty, war and natural disasters.

Each year, the Foundation awards scholarships to deserving young researchers in the fields of wood processing, electrical engineering, energy and metal industry.

Born in 1875, Walter Ahlström was the President of A. Ahlström Oy in 1907–1931, a time when the company’s operations were firmly rooted in the forest industry. Early on, Walter Ahlström understood how important it was to promote research and development in order to improve the competitiveness of Finnish industry. To support the further education of young engineers, in 1926, he established the Walter Ahlström Foundation.

Each year, the Foundation awards scholarships to deserving young researchers in the fields of wood processing, electrical engineering, energy and metal industry. To be eligible, applicants must hold an academic degree and be 35 or younger. In addition, an applicant must possess a Finnish personal identity code. In recent years, the Foundation has mainly provided incentive grants to support those working on their doctoral theses. With financial support from the Foundation, researchers can travel to international research conferences and visit international research institutions. The Foundation also takes part in the Researchers Abroad programme.

The Lebell’s Merchant woodhouse with interiors from the 18th and 19th century.

In the atmospheric Lebell’s Merchant House museum the visitor can get acquainted with interiors from the 18th and 19th century, and with an important part in the history of Kristinestad. Some original details of the interiors have survived, and together with the furniture and the utensils and decorative items they create an authentic ambiance in the museum.

The Lebell’s Merchant House is situated in the unique woodhouse milieu of Kristinestad, and it demonstrates how a merchant family lived in a maritime city over 200 years ago. The courtyard is surrounded by outbuildings, one of them a rare example of a salt magazine preserved from the glory days of seafaring. The first merchant house was constructed in the 1720s by Casper Lebell (originally second lieutenant Casimir Subkowski/Kazimierz Zubkowski, born in Grodno, Poland), a Polish war prisoner, who was released and granted the right to trade in Kristinestad. The family’s prestige and wealth increased along with their son, Casper Lebell junior. He became a respected merchant and created a fortune by exporting tar and timber and importing salt. Casper Lebell junior had the current house built in 1762. The house was inhabited by three generations of Lebells and two generations of Holmströms, who married into the family, until the house was devolved into other hands. The Lebell Merchant House has functioned as a museum since 1939. Eva Ahlström was a descendant of the Lebell family, and her daughter bought the house and founded a museum.

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