The spring of 1841 During the Napoleon wars Finland´s long history as part of Sweden ended and country reached autonomic status under the Russian empire in 1809. Finland´s new capital Helsinki was given the central government responsibilities with multiple technical offices. Finland´s first university established in 1640 moved also to Helsinki at that time, but Finland was still far away from the large European metropolis and modern development faced multiple obstacles.

In 1838, the Finnish Science Society was given the task to think about how the Finnish innovation and science could develop to meet international standards. Science Society believed that Finland was in no lack of innovative capacity, but with no research instruments in reserve the researchers were not able to verify the problems. The initiative by Finnish Science Society was drafted on the basis of the mechanical plant establishment which the Emperor Nikolai approved 1841.

Finland State Precision engineering plant

When Finland became independent during World War I and the October revolution, Science Society mechanical plant was left to be managed by the Finnish state. This way Mechanical Institution became the Finnish State precision engineering plant. Engineering plant leader was elected to be Johan Zvarnberg who had created his career in Russia. After him in 1918 the machine shop was managed by a German engineer V. Priegnitz.

Finnish Winter War showed what modern technological war was about. Under conditions of national emergency government policy-makers tried to fill shortfalls in the defense as far as possible. One of the major weaknesses was precision engineering competences and production. At the same time set up in National Technical Research Center was set up to Helsinki Sandviken, which included ten research units, but no equipment to manufacture fine-mechanical instruments. State fine-mechanical workshop was expected to help the VTT in it´s worst distress. Eventually it was decided to attach the precision engineering plant to VTT. There was seen the importance of lining up the fine-mechanical workshop plant to be located on the side of VTT.

This way the State precision engineering plant became to be VTT precision engineering shop after 100 years since Finland Science Society set up by the scientific instruments manufacturing unit.

Protoshop name was introduced

The last decades brought increasing pressure for cost-effectiveness also to VTT. In 2000, VTT's precision engineering unit was decided to be privatized and named Protoshop. Since then Protoshop has continued the honorable tradition of it´s heritage stating back to 1841.

Protoshop is the leading Finnish precision engineering company. We participate in several research projects in conjunction with VTT, Aalto University and the Otaniemi High Tech companies in the region, and we can offer our customers and partners a significantly higher level of expertise and added value than traditional machine shops in Finland and elsewhere in the world.