 At that time Helsinki was only a small wooden town of about 4000 inhabitants, albeit with huge island fortress of Sveaborg and its military garrison nearby.The czar appointed the military engineer Johan Albrecht Ehrenström, a former courtier of Sweden's King Gustavus III, as head of the reconstruction committee, with the task of drawing up a plan for a new stone-built capital.The heart of the scheme was the Senate Square, surrounded by Neoclassical buildings for the state, church and university.