Talk:Villa Rana

Frog theme
(or someone), we read:


 * "In the 1960s, the building was named after its frog-themed ornamentation."

Does rana mean "frog"? If not, what, if anything, does rana mean, and what's the new name? If it does mean "frog", then what was its earlier name?

Also, what's meant by "frog-themed ornamentation"? -- Hoary (talk) 01:25, 27 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @Hoary: there are frogs depicted in the decoration, eg. in the first gallery image you can see above the windows two frogs sitting on some water lilies. And yes, 'rana' does mean a type of frog: Rana (genus). Which I defo knew, didn't need to look up or anything! :) -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 06:46, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I hadn't known the Latin word, or genus, rana, so I'm even more ignorant than I'd realized, DoubleGrazing. Well, this does raise the question of what the building was called during the decades before it acquired this new name. (Also, why the frog motif? Et cetera.) -- Hoary (talk) 08:11, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, that was some rabbit hole you sent me down, @Hoary! No, even after looking under every lilypad, I couldn't find any mention anywhere of the building's original name. Perhaps it didn't have a name; after all, it was built for a fairly utilitarian purpose, as an educational facility for the college's arts & crafts training.
 * Why frogs? Who knows. Although I have a feeling it might not have been about the frogs, actually, but about the water lilies. They were quite a popular theme in Art Nouveau, and feature strongly already in Blomstedt's original proposal. (And of course, the 'blom' in Blomstedt means flower, although that's probably pushing this point a step too far.) So maybe the frogs are just there in a 'support role'. Maybe the building should have been named Villa Nymphaeaceae instead! -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:57, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, DoubleGrazing, that's very plausible. (And blom as "flower": of course! And for a monoglot anglophone such as myself, even the slightest exposure to Finnish is a wonderful way of reminding me of how easy languages such as Swedish or German should be -- for me, if not necessarily for native speakers of, say, Estonian or Livvi-Karelian.) -- Hoary (talk) 22:46, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Paulaharju
We're told of:
 * "The workspaces of the Department of History and Ethnology and lecture halls named after Blomstedt and Paulaharju"

I clicked on the reference that's provided, and read how Google Translate rendered it in English. It too doesn't specify which Paulaharju is meant. I'm guessing that this is Samuli Paulaharju, but of course mere guesses are worthless. Does any editor know? -- Hoary (talk) 22:46, 27 October 2023 (UTC)


 * That's correct, Samuli; I'll add a link and source to clarify that. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 06:30, 28 October 2023 (UTC)