What's more interesting, New York or Helsinki?  

designite is right, Helinski'...
designite is right, Helinski's the library, NYC is NYC. Now, if the question was NYC or Paris, then you'd have a hard choice.

Dear ycl
Sorry I missed your interesting comment. I agree that one can learn both from excellent, good, mediocre and even bad architecture. I did a few times a confernce on the products that I designed that failed on the market. My main motivation was that one learns often more from mistakes than from doing things right. This being said, I disagree with your assumption that a larger cultural difference would be a better educational experience or pedagogical setting. My profession of industrial designer has allowed me to travel to many parts of the world and my experience is that if you are not well prepared, meaning if you have not studied the culture, the dominant religions and political systems and the history and some of the language, most of what you see, hear and....taste is "exotic" and to some extend exciting, but it is difficult to learn the lessons that are hidden behind these unusual experiences. I think that from an educational point of view it is better to expand from the certainties of your own culture into neighboring cultures. N.Y. and the U.S. in general seem obvious for north americans, but far less for Europeans than americans generally expect. Hence the popular reaction in the U.S. when a country like France does not follow U.S. "guidance" in their policy in Irak. Back to the Andersen question...I agree that as much can be learned in New York than in Helsinki/Helsingfors...unless there is a subway strike in N.Y. The Finish capital seems to me such a better "pedagogical" place where it is easy to concentrate on the purpose of the trip: learning from existing archtecture.

Ah... ha, ha, ha...
.
Speaking of New York, some1 wrote:
...the lifestyle of its citizens (poverty)
Speaking of designer cloths, some1 wrote:
No you wont spot any milanese with fendi bags...They make them for the new yorkers.
That's awsome, us New Yorkers are so impoverished, we can only afford to wear Fendi...
Man, non-sequiturs like that just rock.
You're an imbecile.
BTW, does anyone still wear Fendi? When wearing Italian, I prefer Prada myself. Last time I was in Milan there was more garbage on the streets than New York, and that's saying something. One of the filthiest cities I've ever seen. Every inch of everything up as high as an arm could reach covered in graffiti even in the good parts of town... century old public sculptures tagged with spray paint. There was something very Clockwork Orange about the whole place.
I love Italy.
.
http://www.citylightsnews.com/paparazzi/p2002/graffiti-nov2002/

stay on topic, stay on topic...
.
Oh, on topic, given the choice myself, I'd goto Helsinki... but, er, I'm already here in New York. I don't have much reason to "visit".
Best of luck. If you do chose to come to New York, let us know and I'll try to help with some places to recommend.
.

Thanks, guys!
I've read each of all these replies as soon as they were posted. It's been quite exiting to see what such a "simple" question has received of interesting comments, some on topic, some not but nevermind - it's all good and sometimes even quite funny. I didn't want to give feedback too quick since I wanted replies without my influence first.
No decision has been made yet. I'm personally a huge fan of Scandinavian design history, esp. 1940-1970, and here I think only Finland can compete with my own country, Denmark, regarding the similarity between quantity and quality.
So I think I might place my vote on Finland. I've been to New York before and MY GOD, it's big ... perhaps too big. When I think of Helsinki, I think of it as a chance to learn and experience a lot of great things reg. design and architechture. When I think of New York, I think PAAAARTYYYY! ... ehm, or more of it as a place to spend your holiday. Then again, I might look at New York with fresh new eyes this time since I didn't care about design 10 years ago and a lot has changed since then, both with me and the Big Apple. It might be a fun experience in itself to revisit the city ... and yes, now I'm back to square one again.
Actually, we're students at a school that primarily teaches architecture but my fellow students and I are actually there to be designers, not architects. The school has a small section that educates only designers and that's where we're from. Of course we're also introduced to architecture but it's primarily design.
To begin with I wanted as broad an answer as possible, but if we zoom in on the subject of design with these two cities in mind, are there then any new thoughts, places to recommend, things to consider etc.?