Pihlajamäen lähiö (Rönnbacka förort)

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

The Pihlajamäki suburb is one of the first area-scale building projects in the country. It was zoned in the early 1960s in a rugged forest landscape 10 kilometres from the centre of Helsinki. Pihlajamäki has been selected for the selection of key works of Finnish modernism approved by the international DOCOMOMO organisation.

Pihlajamäki is a residential area dependent on the city and on public transport connections, the kind of suburb that later became typical. The Pihlajamäki town plan shows the first signs of town planning, industrial building technology and efficiency aims coming together. Pihlajamäki stands at the turning point between suburban ideology and suburban construction in Helsinki.

The Pihlajamäki town plan, drawn by architect Olli Kivinen, contains five residential cells of about 1,500 inhabitants each. Each cell is bordered by a residential street that curves around and ends in a cul-de-sac, and at the centre of each cell formed by residential buildings there is a local shop. Between the cells lies a day-care centre. The schools are located in the northern part, and the shopping centre is on the approach road.

The areas were built half and half by two construction companies: Sosiaalinen asuntotuotanto Oy, known as Sato, and Helsingin Asuntokeskuskunta Haka. The south-western side of Rapakiventie was built by Sato and designed by Lauri Silvennoinen. The north-eastern part was built by Haka and, in the housing production department of the Central Union of Consumer Cooperatives (KK), designed by Esko Korhonen. The low-lying northern part was built by both Sato and Haka.

On the Haka side the buildings are long, open U-shaped slabs that wind with the contours of the terrain, and five point blocks stand in a row along the street. On the Sato side, long four-storey slabs border the steep edge of the rock, running almost straight. Higher up, on the rock hilltops, stand ten eight-storey point blocks, from which magnificent views open all the way to the sea. Repetition is typical of the area: hundreds of apartments of the same type exist, and the longest slab has 18 stairwells.

The architecture of the areas embodies a transition from one stage of building technology and architecture to another. Haka's large-panel technique still draws on the 1950s tradition, while Sato's fully precast-element technique and architecture, its scale and composition, and its streamlined form and pursuit of efficiency have pointed the way for future construction. In Pihlajamäki, rock outcrops and väkkärämänty pines are central landscape-architectural elements, serving as counterpoints to the straight white building masses rising from the rock. The building masses are large, as are the natural areas between them. The steepest and wildest terrain has been left unbuilt.

The infill construction in the area, which began in the 1970s, has kept the basic layout of the original town plan but has altered the edge areas of the residential cells and the surroundings of the shopping centre.

History

Area development refers to the cooperation and agreement between a city, banks and construction companies on the building of an entire new residential area, i.e. a suburb. It is also linked to the ARAVA system and housing savings. The housing savings system of area development was first applied in Kaivoksela and Pihlajamäki. Pihlajamäki was divided equally, on political grounds, between "right-wing and left-wing" interest groups, such as construction companies, banks, cooperative societies and insurance institutions. Area development sought a solution to the housing shortage caused by the large age cohorts of a country undergoing urbanisation.

The plan for Pihlajamäki was drawn up in 1959-1964, and residential construction was completed in 1964. The zoning and building design of the northeastern part of the plan, the so-called Hakan side, proceeded in cooperation with the housing production department of KK. Esko Korhonen had previously designed, among other things, the plan and buildings of the Roihuvuori residential area in Hakka. The plan and design of the southwestern part, the Sato side, were finalised through an architectural competition held in 1960, which was won by architect Lauri Silvennoinen.