Empire-Porvoon puutalokorttelit ja julkiset rakennukset (Trähuskvarter och offentliga byggnader i Borgå empirecentrum)

English translation (from the Finnish)

The text above is the record as published by the Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto), in Finnish. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto); it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

Description

The architect C.L. Engel's grid plan area in Porvoo has been one of Finland's most significant town plans realised according to Empire-period design principles and ideals. The original plan has preserved its block division, coherent street views, and individual residential buildings, as well as significant public buildings such as the town hall, the Porvoo lyseo, the Deaf school, the market square, and parks.

The regular Empire-period grid plan of southern Porvoo has been well preserved, but the building stock has been greatly renewed since the 1960s and 1970s. Original building stock has survived in the area only in fragments. The best-preserved ensembles of the Empire-period town district are located along Aleksanterinkatu, Lukiokatu and Jokikatu.

The oldest building stock consists of single-storey, Empire-style buildings constructed in the 1840s and 1850s. On the plots, the large residential building stands along the street, and the outbuildings are located at the sides of the yard so that, for fire-safety reasons, they do not stand against the neighbouring buildings. The building frontage of Jokikatu and the buildings of Aleksanterinkatu are representative Empire architecture.

The most significant public buildings of the Empire-period town district are the Porvoo lyseo, built in the middle of the 19th century, the town hall built along the market square, and the three neo-Renaissance-style wooden buildings of the Deaf school. Runeberg's home (C.J.E. Gustavson 1849), with its outbuildings and garden, is a particularly well-preserved private house. The wooden architecture surrounding it is also highly characteristic of Empire-period construction.

The most significant squares included in the town plan are the kauppatori, which covers one block, and the kaupunginpuisto, which covers one and a half blocks, as well as the park associated with the Porvoo lyseo. From the kauppatori, a wide park street leads to the bank of the Porvoonjoki. The riverbank has been straightened and planted.

History

The grid plan for the southern part of Porvoo town centre was drawn up in 1832 by the architect C.L. Engel on the orders of Emperor Nicholas I. According to the town plan, the area was to be built with single-storey wooden buildings. The plots were to be planted for fire safety reasons. The grid plan was also intended to extend over medieval-origin Old Porvoo, but it was not implemented there.

Porvoo Lyceum was completed in 1849 to designs by the architect E.B. Lohrmann and consecrated in 1850. The town hall (C.R. Rosenberg) was built along the market square in 1893.

The first school for the deaf and mute in our country was founded in Porvoo in 1846 by Carl Oskar Malm, who had himself received his education in Stockholm while deaf and mute. After the state took over the school's administration, it was moved to Turku. The Porvoo school continued as a private institution and was transferred to the state in 1860. The three institutional buildings of the Porvoo school for the deaf (the school building, the pupils' building and the director's residence) were built in 1898. They were designed in the yleisten rakennusten ylihallitus under the direction of the architect Th. Granstedt.

Johan Ludwig Runeberg, Finland's national poet, lived at Aleksanterikatu 3 from 1852 to 1877. The Runeberg home museum, established in the residential building, opened in 1882.