Memorial to Koivisto unveils in 2023

A memorial to former president Mauno Koivisto will be erected in Helsinki, said an official press release.

The memorial will be unveiled on the birth centenary of Koivisto on 25 November 2023.

The Prime Minister’s Office has appointed a committee for implementing the project for 16 December 2019 to 31 December 2023.

The committee will be chaired by Prime Minister emeritus Paavo Lipponen.

The committee will be responsible for organising a competition for the design of the memorial and for selecting the winner or winners of the design competition.

The committee will also decide the location of the memorial on the basis of proposals received from the City of Helsinki.

The other members of the committee chaired by Paavo Lipponen are Permanent State Under-Secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office (vice-chair) Timo Lankinen, Heikki Allonen, representative of Koivisto’s immediate family, Antti Ahlava, a professor at Aalto University, Pirjo Sanaksenaho, a professor at Aalto University, and Maija Tanninen-Mattila, a director at the Helsinki Art Museum. The City of Helsinki will also appoint its representative to the committee.

Sanna Helopuro, senior ministerial adviser to the Prime Minister’s Office has been appointed the secretary of the committee.

He was born on 25 November 1923 in Turku and died on 12 May 2017 in Helsinki at the age of 93. He was the ninth president of Finland, in office from 1982 to 1994.

Koivisto served as the prime minister in 1968 to 1970 and 1979 to 1982 and as the minister of finance in 1966 to 1967 and in 1972. He was the governor of the Bank of Finland (chairman of the board) from 1968 to 1982, and worked in executive duties at the National Workers’ Savings Bank of Finland from 1958 to 1967.

Furthermore, he held a long list of positions of trust and honorary memberships. As a young man he worked at a dockyard and was a primary school teacher, among other things. He studied while working and eventually earned a doctoral degree.