Vallilan asuinalueet (Vallgårds bostadsområden)

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

Puu-Vallila and Uusi Vallila together form a large residential area built for the working population in the early decades of the 20th century. Excellently preserved, it illustrates the aims of the era to improve the living conditions of the working population of the growing and industrialising capital through urban planning and the steering of housing production.

In Puu-Vallila, the small plots of the 1910s, laid out along narrow streets that follow the terrain, embody the ideals of the period. The streets are lined with wooden houses with mansard roofs, and within the blocks lie courtyard gardens with their outbuildings. Although affordable high-quality working-class housing in owner-occupied homes was never realised in old Vallila, because houses built to model drawings turned out to be cramped rental flats, old Vallila is valued as a small-scale and coherent whole.

Uusi Vallila is a large working-class residential area built in the 1920s alongside Puu-Vallila, around Mäkelänkatu and Sturenkatu, according to ideals of a uniform urban townscape. Its construction was made possible partly by new forms of municipal and state loans. Along the main traffic routes stand narrow-bodied stone apartment blocks, whose flats were designed to be bright. In the shelter of the apartment blocks along Hauhontie and Mäkelänkatu, on the smaller streets, are wooden houses, such as the classicist two-storey houses with three stairwells built by housing cooperatives on Keuruuntie and Vanajantie. Near Sturenkatu, the apartment blocks encircle the entire block, forming large block courtyards. The large city block of Kone- ja Siltarakennus Osakeyhtiö is the most notable of these and the most complete realisation of the large courtyard idea, with its own park courtyard.

The Paavalin kirkko, with its tall towers, built on the strip of land between the large residential block and Hämeentie, is a landmark of the district. Built of red brick, the classicist church is a rectangular basilica. Beside its choir end rises a tall bell tower, following Italian models, which dominates the surrounding park and in turn connects with the parish premises that frame the open, square-like courtyard.

History

When planning the residential area for Vallila's working-class population, it was intended to depart from the town planning solutions of the late 19th century and early 20th century in the Kallio district. In Kallio, the network of grand streets, which disregarded the terrain, was expensive to build, and the large plots suited only the needs of builders of large rental blocks.

The so-called Vallila-komitea (Vallila Committee) was established in 1907 to investigate the causes of unsatisfactory housing conditions and to seek solutions to them. The planning of Puu-Vallila, a villa district that was "varied in appearance and pleasing to its residents", was carried out with the participation of Bertel Jung, the city's first town plan architect. The city's rental plots were first allocated in the plot division map of 1908: 13 blocks on the west side of Mäkelänkatu and 9 blocks on the east side. Type drawings for the wooden houses with mansard roofs were prepared by the architect Karl Hård af Segerstad. Construction, which took place in the 1910s and 1920s, deviated from the goals and fell into the hands of speculative builders, and instead of owner-occupied houses, the residential buildings became tenement barracks for several families. Some of the houses were destroyed in the bombing raids of 1944.

Bertel Jung's so-called New Vallila extension plans, that is, the plot division plan for the area, were confirmed in 1916. New Vallila was likewise planned as a healthy and safe residential area for people of modest means, with larger apartments. Uniform facade schemes were applied in the area. In the previously built-up area of Puu-Vallila, wooden houses designed by Jussi and Toivo Paatela and Armas Lindgren, among others, were added. In the area of Mäkelänkatu and Sturenkatu, stone houses and large blocks were built instead of the originally planned wooden houses, based on the plan amendments of town plan architect Birger Brunila. Among the municipal residential apartment blocks, mention may be made of the stone houses built in 1925-1926 to designs by Gunnar Taucher in the western part of Mäkelänkatu. Uno Moberg, for his part, designed the apartment blocks at the eastern end of Mäkelänkatu. Other 1920s residential apartment blocks in Vallila include, among others, As. Oy Eura, designed by Jussi and Toivo Paatela, and As. Oy Hauho and As. Oy Sture, designed by Martti Välikangas.

The block built by Kone- ja Siltarakennus Osakeyhtiö was constructed in 1917-1929 to designs by Armas Lindgren and Bertel Liljequist. The planting plan for the open park courtyard that formed inside the block was made by Elisabeth Koch, who early on applied English garden design ideas in Finland, among others. The Paavalin kirkko (Paavali Church), completed in 1931, was designed by Bertel Liljeqvist.

The buildings and milieu of Puu-Vallila were protected in the 1970s on the initiative of a residents' movement, by which time a new plan replacing the old buildings had already been confirmed for the area. The houses were thoroughly renovated at the beginning of the 1980s.