Pieksämäen Keskuskatu

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

Keskuskatu in Pieksämäki is a good example of post-war town planning and commercial building, where the aim has been a unified architectural character for the street line.

Keskuskatu, the main street of the town of Pieksämäki, which developed at a railway junction, begins at a bridge over the railway and ends at the top of an esker. The planned landmark there was realised only in 1956, when the water tower designed by architect Aarne Ervi was completed.

The oldest buildings constructed on Keskuskatu according to the town plan are the functionalist-type shops and commercial buildings on the section between Tallikatu and Lampolahdenkatu. The townscape of Keskuskatu has become unified, although the building stock dates from several different decades, because the volume and placement of new buildings correspond to the original town-plan concept. The street's tree rows date from the 1950s, and the paving of the pavements and the uniform street lighting emphasise the street's architectural unity.

The uniform small-house area of Kontiopuisto, also based on the plan by O.-I. Meurman, adjoins the eastern end of the street directly (see Kontiopuisto omakotialue).

History

Pieksämäki grew at the junction of the Savo Line, completed in 1889, and the poikittaisrata line, brought into use in 1918. New transport links split Pieksämäki in two. The built-up settlements of the station area and the church village were confirmed as a market town in 1930. Pieksämäki became a town in 1962.

Keskuskatu, the backbone of Pieksämäki's town-plan structure, is based on the town plan drawn up in 1934 by architect Otto-Iivari Meurman. Meurman's role in Finnish town planning was significant during the interwar period. It lay in establishing town planning, in developing its professional practices and in advancing its social weight. Between the wars he drew up plans for more than 20 Finnish towns and market towns.

However, the history of Keskuskatu predates Meurman's plan, since it already appears in the partly realised 1922 town plan of Pieksämäki, which the architectural office of Jussi and Toivo Paatela was preparing.

Among the buildings along Keskuskatu, the following may be mentioned: the Meriluoto house, built in 1925, which was the childhood home of the poet Aila Meriluoto; the Urheilukenttä gate; the Keskuskoulu from 1929; Kinolinna; the Sepponen house; the KOP building; the POK building; and the Osuusliike. The designers of the functionalist commercial buildings included, among others, architects Walde Aulanko, Georg Jägerroos and Pekka Saaremaa.