Sirkkalan kasarmit (Sirkkala kaserner)

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

The Sirkkala barracks area is one of the oldest urban barracks areas in the country to have retained its main features, alongside the Helsinki Kaartin kasarmi and the Katajanokka Merikasarmi. The Turun krenatööritarkkampujapataljoona's urban barracks was located, in its founding phase in 1846, in the former Turku city poorhouse.

The present building stock of the barracks area, which developed on the Kurjenkaivonkenttä from the 1840s onwards, comprises a number of stone military buildings. The former poorhouse is a three-storey stone building of simple classicist appearance. The main guardhouse is located next to the Kaivokatu gate. The main façade of the main guardhouse is dominated by an arcade with gabled pediments, a feature typical of this building type. The military hospital in the area, dating from the 1840s, is a two-storey brick building.

Along Kaivokatu, a three-storey barracks building was built in the 1870s, which in its architecture relates to the development of barracks construction of its time and to the sphere of influence of international architectural currents.

History

The Finnish Army's krenatööritarkk´ampujapataljoona was established in 1846. It was stationed in Turku, in the former city poorhouse designed by city architect P.J. Gylich and completed around 1834, on the edge of the Kurjenkaivonkenttä between Kerttulinmäki and the grid plan area. The hilly site had been designated as an unbuilt area in the town plan drawn up by architect C.L. Engel after the Turku city fire, in 1828.

The conversion of the poorhouse, which had been sold to the Crown, into a barracks was planned in 1846 at the Intendentinkonttori. The most visible changes included adding stairwell projections to the edges of the courtyard elevations. During the founding phase of the Sirkkala barracks area, i.e. when the 150-place poorhouse was converted into military accommodation, a brick main guardhouse was also built. The military hospital was built in the late 1840s.

The krenatööritarkk´ampujapataljoona left the Sirkkala barracks and Turku in 1857, and in the 1860s the Finnish army troops in the barracks were replaced by Russian ones. The Russian phase continued into the early 20th century and until Finland's independence. The most important addition to the area's building stock during that time was a three-storey accommodation building, which went up in the latter part of the 1870s along Kaivokatu, next to the main guardhouse. The architectural plan had been drawn up in 1875 at the Yleisten rakennusten ylihallitus under Axel Hampus Dalström.

Military accommodation in the barracks area ceased in the second half of the 20th century, and the building stock was adapted for headquarters and hospital use. Under the use of the Turun ja Porin sotilasläänin esikunta, the Sirkkala barracks area remained so until the 1990s and early 2000s. All the stone buildings in the area were then to be renovated for institutional use by the Turun yliopisto.