A city that is too densely built is purely oppressive, writes Roope Lipasti.
As a child, I loved the book series “Three Detectives”. In it, the detectives were holed up in an old trailer hidden in the back of Jupiter Jones’ yard. Hiding the headquarters was possible because the yard was full of junk, because it was a ‘junkyard’, which at least in the old English translations was translated as ‘dump’. But it was a junkyard. Some might also call it a big flea market, one that sold everything from kettles to pulleys.
Such places are fascinating because they are unpredictable. You never know what’s coming next. Rubbish, probably, but perhaps England’s crown jewels.
It’s a cosy city where you’re never quite sure what’s around the next corner. The eye rests on the different layers of history, a city that has grown little by little, over hundreds of years, more or less at random. Look how awful that building is! Hey, oh, there’s a statue of a genocide, what the hell!
But you have to remember that even though the term was invented in Turku – like many other things that are essential to Finnish culture – it hasn’t stayed in Turku. Helsinki has at least as ruthlessly destroyed its own history.
Gasping for oxygen, I have also followed the current activities in Helsinki when Keskuspuisto is being chopped up or the Colosseum is being placed in the square of the main train station.
You can find something similar in every city in Finland. Each one has pictures of some lovely old buildings in a mall corridor that have been run down. There isn’t really enough space in Finland, when even today there is only seven hectares per inhabitant.
In the same way, more apartment buildings are being built in every possible place around the city: if there is space left by the housing association, it can easily fit two apartment buildings! If somewhere there is a lower building stock than the old one, it could be replaced by – apartment buildings!
A district has been built around the castle, which is called the fancy marketing name \”Linnanfältti\ because everyone thinks it’s nice to live in the castle. Each house is a similar-looking wooden apartment building. They look as if a Lego man came from Denmark to set them up. They are not particularly ugly individually, but when you put 20 next to each other, the situation is different.
Is that what people really want? I actually get depressed when I walk through overbuilt areas that give the impression that, well, they were all built in the 90s on a Tuesday, or in the 2020s in July, when the planner was busy with the cottage.
Similarly, when you look at suburbs built in the 70s, the most important thing they exude is spaciousness. The houses are not necessarily the same as Eira, but the yards are even more so – there is room to play and run. I understand that city centers can’t fit a football field in every yard, but we could now leave enough space there that even a shoulder-sized person could fit between the houses.
*Roope Chest of Drawers*
*The author is a writer interested in houses.*
*The column can be discussed on 14.2. until 23:00.*