Pirkkolan omakotialue ja rintamamiestalot (Egnahemsområdet i Britas och frontmannahusen)

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

Pirkkola is a representative example of a residential area built quickly and with few resources during the post-war reconstruction period, using type-house design and standardisation, and of the housing production of so-called rintamamiestalo houses. Most of the residential buildings in Pirkkola were donated by Sweden and Norway.

The detached-house area was built on the area's building plan drawn up in 1938. Pirkkola has about 200 detached-house plots, and about 20 in the Lampuotilantie area. Most houses are single-storey, and one-and-a-half-storey houses are found in the Viidenrajantie and Lampuotilantie areas. The houses have a basement storey for the sauna and laundry room. The Pirkkola gift house has a floor area of either 53 m² or 58 m². The smaller one has two rooms and a kitchen. Most houses have been extended, and a standard drawing for extending the gift houses dates from 1947, in which the porch and additional room are on the long side of the house. Behind each plot is a private garden, toward which any extensions have been built.

All buildings in the uniform area were built according to type drawings, the trees are of the same age, and the yards are well kept. There is a park with a brook in the middle of the area. The curving, small-scale street views are due to the small plot size, and the result is compact and urban. The pitched-roof wooden houses along the street are positioned either transversely or parallel to the street, and on Petaksentie they are set at an angle to the street. Hedges lining the streets are common, as is uniform yard design.

History

Due to the growth and expansion of the capital and the demand for detached house plots, the city of Helsinki planned the Pirkkola detached house area, and the city council approved the building plan in 1938. The forested area was given a road network, a plot division and building locations. The plan also included the Lampuotilantie area.

In 1940, Sweden and Norway donated factory-made wooden houses, so-called asevelitalot, to Finland. Helsinki, Lahti, Kuopio and Kuhmo were the largest recipients of the donated houses. The most common type was a house with two rooms and a kitchen. A larger three-room house type was built only in Helsinki and Turku.

Construction of the Pirkkola detached house area began during the war, in 1940-1941. The city leased plots to front-line veterans and Karelian migrants. At that time, 150 houses donated by Sweden and Norway were erected. The number of buildings later grew to two hundred. Plot sizes were 700-1000 m².

The donated houses were modified to suit local conditions. Type drawings for Pirkkola were designed by, among others, the architects Alvar Aalto, Aalto & Kokko and Lauri Pajamies. The timber-framed house elements manufactured by the Swedish company AB Svenska Trähus were assembled on site by the city's building office. Pirkkola's first town plan, dated 1955, confirmed the prevailing situation and land use.

The city leased the plots in the Lampuotilantie area for settlement by front-line veterans or Karelian migrants, and the one-and-a-half-storey wooden houses were completed in 1945-1947. The standard house drawings for the plots were prepared by the plot department of the kiinteistövirasto. The lessees of the plots were responsible for building the houses. The layout of the area was based on the amendment to the 1940 building plan.

The garden designer Elisabeth Koch prepared model garden plans for the yards of the area in 1941-1942.