Suomen Sokerin Vaasan tehdas asuinalueineen (Finska Sockers Vasafabrik med bostadsområde)

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 Suomen Sokeri Vaasa factory, with its residential area, is a factory community from the industrialisation era, built outside the urban built-up area near the harbour and the railway. The sugar factory buildings and residential buildings form a well-preserved whole.

The Suomen Sokeri factories are located on a headland jutting north into Vaskiluoto, which lies west of Vaasa. The oldest factory buildings, the office, the clock tower building and the machine workshop, are ornate red brick buildings. The office was designed by provincial architect K.V. Reinius.

Reinius also designed the factory director's residence and the workers' residential buildings, which are brick-clad and vertical-log-framed. The wooden-house environment is formed, among others, by the wooden workers' residential buildings designed by Runar Finnilä in the 1920s. There is also building stock from later decades. Almost all of the residential buildings of the factory community have survived.

History

The country's first sugar factory was established in Turku in 1756. The sugar import duty of 1897 made a profitable sugar industry possible. Construction of the Vaasa Sugar Factory began at the end of the 1890s, after the Senate had granted a operating licence to Vasa Sockerfabriks Aktiebolag.

Vaskiluoto's location was advantageous, as the factory needed, in addition to a large area of land and good transport links, water for its production needs. Vaskiluoto harbour had been completed in 1892 and the harbour railway in 1900. The factory's machinery was installed by 1899, and production started the same year. Provincial architect K.V. Reinius designed the sugar factory's production buildings, the director's residence and the workers' residential buildings. The building stock of the 1920-1940s was designed mainly by Runar Finnilä, and the building stock of the 1950-1960s by Leo Lehtikanto.

Operations of the Vaasa Sugar Factory passed to Suomen Sokeri Oy in 1919, and production continued under the new company into the 1980s. After that, the properties passed to Vaskiluodon teollisuuskiinteistöt Oy, and small businesses, among others, began operating in them.