Serlachius

The story of Serlachius in Mänttä began in 1868, when Gustaf Adolf Serlachius acquired a plot on the western bank of the Mäntänkoski rapids, including the rights to the waterpower of the rapids. He built a groundwood mill on the edge of the rapids, and the building process was completed in March 1869. He laid the foundation for a company that would place Mänttä on the world map with its paper products.

Nowadays Serlachius – an art destination maintained by the Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation, operates in two locations: the former company headquarters (completed in 1934) and Joenniemi Manor, the former home of the second-generation mill director, Gösta Serlachius. At Serlachius, you can experience meaningful moments with national art treasures, stunning architecture, and experiences surrounded by lakeside nature.

Joenniemi Manor has presented the Serlachius art collection since 1945. In 2000, the Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation purchased the former headquarters building from Metsä-Serla. The foundation’s chairman at the time, Gustaf Serlachius, wanted to ensure the dignified use of the historic building. It was decided to turn the headquarters into a museum of cultural history to showcase the history of Finnish forest industry and the community that grew around it. After extensive renovations, the headquarters opened to the public as the G.A. Serlachius Museum in 2003.

Serlachius Headquarters tells the story of the art collection and the Mänttä mill community. Located in the center of Mänttä, the former headquarters also features temporary exhibition spaces, a café, and a museum shop. Serlachius Manor houses extensive exhibition spaces, a sculpture park, Restaurant Gösta, summer café Autereentupa, a museum shop, and the Art Sauna. Serlachius is open year-round. Both sites can be visited with one entrance ticket, and guided tours for both locations are available upon request.

Many prominent architects, such as Valter and Ivar Thomé, W. G. Palmqvist, Jarl Eklund, and the Jung brothers, left their mark on the Mänttä landscape. While some of the paper mill buildings have been merged into newer structures or demolished, the industrial landscape still strongly dominates Mänttä’s cityscape.

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ERIH Member

Serlachius Manor
Joenniementie 47
35800 Mänttä

Serlachius Headquaters
R. Erik Serlachiuksen katu 2
35800 Mänttä

Highlights

The headquarters of G. A. Serlachius Ltd
houses a museum.

Industrial heritage is present throughout the town.

History

The Serlachius family led the paper industry in Mänttä for over a century, spanning four generations. The first director of the Mänttä mills, Gustaf Adolf Serlachius (1830–1901), was one of the pioneers of the Finnish paper industry and paved the way for the future success of the forest sector.

Through three decades of persistent work and daring choices, G. A. Serlachius established two groundwood mills, two steam sawmills, a paper mill, a cardboard processing plant, and a paper bag factory. The early days of the groundwood mill were full of practical and financial difficulties. There were no roads to Mänttä, so the only way to get products to market was by water. The mill produced pulp sheets that were initially dried in primitive conditions before being transported to St. Petersburg for further processing. In 1890, all wooden production buildings in the factory area burned down; only the new groundwood mill, completed the previous year, was spared.

While business circles generally considered Serlachius a difficult and reckless partner, he earned great respect among the people of Mänttä. G. A. Serlachius was known as a passionate patriot, so his status helped him to successfully lobby for a road and a railway to his village. G. A. Serlachius also built housing, a school, a shop, a hospital, and other services for his workers.

After G. A. Serlachius’s death, his nephew Gösta took over the management. Gösta Serlachius (1876–1942) was one of Finland’s most influential industrialists during the interwar period, determined to elevate G.A. Serlachius Oy into a major international corporation. He was known as a businessman who did not shy away from risks, but also as a friend, patron, and collector of art.

Under his leadership, Mänttä’s industrial landscape was modernized and expanded. With mechanization came increasingly large red-brick machine halls. A sulfite cellulose mill, a spirit factory, a bleachery, and the new headquarters were built with the company’s aesthetic facade in mind. Gösta Serlachius hired the best Finnish architects to design these buildings. Over time, the factory evolved to meet the demands of the papermaking process. The oldest surviving buildings date back to the early 1900s, though the factory has expanded and products have changed over the decades.

In addition to industrial buildings, the company commissioned other landmarks in Mänttä. The Mänttä Club, originally designed by Valter and Ivar Thomé and finished by W. G. Palmqvist, was completed as the company’s venue for festivities in 1920. In 1928, the company built and donated a church to the Mänttä parish.

Following Gösta Serlachius’s death in 1942, his eldest son Ralph Erik Serlachius (1901–1980) took the helm. Under R. Erik Serlachius’s leadership, G. A. Serlachius Oy grew into a conglomerate and became one of Finland’s five largest forest industry companies.In 1986, G. A. Serlachius Oy merged with Metsäliiton Teollisuus Oy to form Metsä-Serla Oy.
R. Erik Serlachius’s son, Gustaf Serlachius (1935–2009), who had served as the mill director, became the Chairman of the Board of Metsä-Serla. Gradually, the Serlachius family stepped back from the active management of the paper mill. Today, the Metsä Tissue mill in Mänttä continues to produce tissue and greaseproof paper.