Look up at the Ateneum's pediment and you will find a goddess of war keeping watch over Helsinki's art lovers. The building takes its name from Pallas Athene, and was built, in 1887, as a temple worthy of her. Pilasters, karyatids and neo-Renaissance flourish throughout. Those four robed figures flanking the main window are the muses of Architecture, Geometry, Painting and Sculpture, each holding the tools of her trade. Beneath Athena's helmet runs a gilded Latin motto, Concordia res parvae crescunt, in harmony, small things grow - fitting for a gallery built on cooperation between architects, sculptors and painters.

Inside, the Ateneum holds Finland's finest collection of homegrown art, from Albert Edelfelt's portraits to Hugo Simberg's unsettling angels.

VoiceMap's tours pause here within a wider look at Helsinki's National Romantic architecture, using the Ateneum's borrowed symbols to trace how a young nation reached for old myths to build a new identity.