Käpylän puutaloalueet ja Käärmetalo (Kottby trähusområden och Ormhuset)

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

The residential areas of Puu-Käpylä and western Käpylä in Helsinki, together with the Käärmetalo, are, alongside Olympiakylä and Kisakylä, key sites in the history of Finnish social housing production, residential area town planning, and housing design and construction. The Käärmetalo, designed by architect Yrjö Lindegren and located along Mäkelänkatu, is included in the selection of Finnish modern architecture key works approved by the international DOCOMOMO organisation.

The same social, architectural and planning aims lie behind the construction of the wooden house areas of Puu-Käpylä and western Käpylä. Both were established in the early 20th century to solve the housing shortage that arose with industrialisation, and both are working-class residential areas of first-class architectural and social quality, combining the English garden city ideology with the Finnish wooden town tradition. Their uniform townscape is linked to the ideals of Finnish town planning in the 1920s.

The layout of the garden city district of Puu-Käpylä is based on loosely built blocks with shared courtyards. Along Pohjolankatu, the main boulevard street crossing the area built in the early 1920s, and in its immediate surroundings, are rental houses of generally four apartments built by Helsingin Kansanasunnot Oy. The houses originally built as two-family houses by the housing cooperatives Asunto-osuuskunta Käpylä and Asunto-osuuskunta Käpy are located on the outskirts. The wooden houses painted in earth-coloured paints, designed by architect Martti Välikangas, contain details familiar from classical architecture. The standardised element structure developed by architect Akseli Toivonen made possible the rapid construction of the houses with a small workforce.

Puu-Käpylä has the first "lähiökirkko" built outside the city centre in the country. In front of the wing building of the church, which is plastered in a light colour, is a garden-like yard. A low bell tower rises from the right side of the entrance gable of the church. The church and parish hall can be combined.

Mäkelänkatu separates Puu-Käpylä from the western side of Käpylä, where the residential houses were built by the residents themselves. The wooden residential buildings, skilfully fitted to the varying terrain, were built in the mid-1920s and stand along the road, while in the middle of the blocks there is an extensive green zone made up of private gardens. The building of a unified townscape was guided by elevation drawings. Most of the construction drawings for western Käpylä are signed by well-known architects. The detached houses for one and two families, on about 120 plots, are well preserved and have retained their characteristic features.

The so-called Käärmetalo, designed by architect Yrjö Lindegren and belonging to social housing production, was built by the City of Helsinki. The free-form Käärmetalo, which follows the contours of the terrain and favourable orientations, is part of a group of residential buildings for large families, financed and designed under the Arava Act of 1949, and has almost 200 dwellings. Transverse load-bearing partition walls between the apartments structure the building's facades. The service building houses a day-care centre, a laundry room, a sauna and a swimming pool. A natural stone wall separates the varied residential environment from Mäkelänkatu.

History

Käpylä was built largely on the lands of Kumpula manor. In 1893 the City of Helsinki had bought the Kumpula, or Gumtäckt, manor estate.

The Käpylä garden city was based on the idea of a green suburb at the end of a tramline from the stone city and its centre. Behind its implementation stood a semi-municipal housing company, Helsingin Kansanasunnot Oy, founded in 1917 by the City of Helsinki on the initiative of the Asuntoreformiyhdistys. Architects Birger Brunila and Otto-Iivari Meurman drew up the first official layout proposal for the Käpylä area in 1917. Its street network remained largely in force in the final layout proposal for Puu-Käpylä, completed in 1920 by the same designers.

Architect Akseli Toivonen designed standard structures, thanks to which the wooden houses of Käpylä could be erected quickly, a four-apartment house in a couple of weeks. Toivonen was interested in housing production development and standardisation projects. Among other roles, he served as business manager of Helsingin Kansanasunnot Oy.

In 1920 Martti Välikangas was invited to act as architect of the garden city. He resolved the placement of the houses in the terrain and designed the residential buildings within the framework of the standard structures. Elisabeth Koch was responsible for the planting plans. Every family was given its own garden plot in a generously laid-out block. Puu-Käpylä was built on land leased from the city, with favourable loan financing, in three phases in the early 1920s. More than 500 apartments were built between 1920 and 1925 in the various house types of the housing cooperatives.

The prize in the architectural competition held for the Käpylä church was shared by architects Martti Välikangas and Ilmari Sutinen. The church was completed in 1930 according to drawings prepared by Sutinen. On the edge of the area, on Sampsantie, the City of Helsinki had the stone buildings of Helsingin Virkamiesasunto-osakeyhtiö built for its employees.

In the 1960s, more intensive building was planned for Puu-Käpylä. However, after prolonged public opposition, Käpylä received a preservation-oriented town plan in 1971. Repair work begun the following year was designed by architect Bengt Lundsten.

The layout proposal for the western part of Käpylä, that is the area between Mäkelänkatu, Koskelantie, the state railway area and Louhenpuisto, was approved in 1921 and was also drawn up by Birger Brunila. With the Town Planning Act, it also became the town plan for western Käpylä in 1937. Construction followed the building regulations approved in 1920.

In western Käpylä, residents built on city-leased plots. The city granted owner-occupied detached house loans for the construction. The building drawings for the western part of Käpylä were signed by Martti Välikangas, Akseli Toivonen, Hilding Ekelund, Martti Paalanen, Uno Moberg and Pehr-Edvin Enehielm. The Käpylä workers' hall was completed in 1926.

To ease the housing shortage and construction after the Second World War, the arava-laki was drawn up in 1949. In Helsinki, Käpylä was one new-build site where state support was used. The building named Käärmetalo belonged to this building period and was completed in 1951. The courtyard plans were probably drawn up by Elisabeth Koch. Basic repairs in 1984-1986 were designed by architect Erik Kråkström.