Eläintarhan huvilat ja yleishyödylliset laitokset (Djurgårdsvillorna och de allmännyttiga byggnaderna vid Djurgården)

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

The late 19th-century villa buildings set loosely on the shore cliffs of Töölö and Eläintarhanlahti, and the public and private buildings of the same era grouped alongside them, representing social building activity, reflect both the new villa culture of their time and the philanthropic movement.

As originally planned, the building sites in Eläintarha offer open views, most of them toward the bay. The buildings on the high rock appear as a representative, chronologically unified and architecturally high-quality park-like villa environment. The multi-storey buildings, marked by decorative details, balconies and towers, are in keeping with the ideals of Central European villa building of the period. Many villas have retained yard and shore buildings as well as staff residences.

The buildings known as the Linnunlaulu villas are named after their lot numbers. The villas are located on both sides of the railway, which runs through the area in a rock cutting. The four wooden villas on the west side of the railway (9, 10, 11, 12) are mainly used as residences and by artists. Of the villas on the east side (6, 7, 8, 14), some have been built for residential use, and some were designed for social purposes. Villa 6 was built as a nursing home for chronic patients. The buildings of villa 7 serve as a vocational school for the blind, a library and a home for the blind. Together with the red-brick Sokeainkoulu in the same block are the wooden children's homes and a shelter, as well as the so-called Tornihuvila along Toinen linja, which can be counted among the Eläintarha villas. In the northern part of the area are the earliest buildings of Diakonissalaitos: the hospital, church and sisters' home. The majority of the villas and of the institutional buildings constructed for social purposes are still in their original or equivalent use.

The railway area, blasted into the rock in the 1860s, has been extended several times.

History

Commercial Counsellor Henrik Borgström leased the Eläintarha area in the mid-19th century. At that time, a hydropathic spa and a zoo were planned for the area, which lay outside the built-up, town-planned urban area, but they were never realised.

The Eläintarha villa area was planned and divided into villa plots in the 1860s. In 1887 the lands of the Kallion tila estate were released from farm use, and in 1891 nine lines were drawn into the Kallion jaoituskaava partition plan. The city handed over both villa plots and adjoining plots on Ensi linja, for residential villas as well as for social and public-benefit institutions. In the 1880s the Eläintarhantie road and a bridge over the railway were built, and at the beginning of the 1890s a pedestrian pengertie from Kaisaniemi to Eläintarha was constructed.

Fourteen villa plots were laid out in Eläintarha, and the villas began to be called by their plot number. Detailed guidelines were drawn up on the park-like character of the area, the placement of villa buildings on their plots, and their architectural form. The busiest building period was in the 1890s. The villas were built for year-round residential use. The designers included architect Albert Petrelius, the architectural firm Grahn, Hedman & Wasastjerna (8), architects J. Westerlund (9), Selim A. Lindqvist & Elia Heikel (10), N. Michelsson (11), Sihvola (12) and Oskar Sundberg (14). The so-called Tornihuvila on the second line was designed by architect Gustaf Lodenius.

Among the so-called 'upper villas' lived, among others, cultural figures; in particular, villa 10 became known at the beginning of the 20th century for the literary evenings hosted by the writer Maila Talvio. It fits the philanthropic character of the area that Maila Talvio was also active in the fight against tuberculosis and in various sanatorium projects.

During the period of urbanisation and industrialisation in Finland, as elsewhere, efforts were made to help those in a weak position through voluntary effort as well. In building social welfare, private individuals and associations also played a significant role alongside the state and the city. Upper- and middle-class women organised themselves, among other things, into ladies' associations, and founded various schools and institutions. In Helsinki, many of these were located in the Eläintarha villa area and its vicinity.

In 1892 Sokeain Ystävät ry had built a home for blind girls (villa 7), designed by Magnus Schjerfbeck, and on the same plot, in 1906, a vocational school for the blind and a library were built to designs by Waldemar Aspelin. In 1893 Stiftelsen Hedvig Sofiahemmet had built a nursing home for chronic patients (villa 6), designed by A. Rosenbröijer.

The first own building of the Sokeainkoulu, commissioned by the Yleisten rakennusten ylihallitus, was built in 1898 to designs by architect Th. Granstedt, on a plot allocated by the city on Ensi linja. A decree on the education of the sensory impaired had been issued in 1892, and a plan for the curricula and space requirements of schools for the blind had been completed in 1893. On the initiative of private women's charity, Barnavårdsföreningen i Finland rf built three wooden houses designed by architect Signe Lagerborg-Stenius in the Sokeainkoulu block in 1897-1905, as well as two children's homes and a shelter.

At the initiative of the wealthy philanthropist Aurora Karamzin, Finland's first Diakonissalaitos received its own hospital, church and sisters' home in 1897, modelled on European examples. According to the diaconia ideal, the institution's purpose was to nurse the sick, train women deaconesses, help the poor and look after disadvantaged children. The hospital designed by architect Magnus Schjerfbeck and the church and sisters' home designed by Karl-August Wrede together formed the far-visible red-brick facade of the Diakonissalaitos.

Some residential villa buildings and villa-like institutional buildings were demolished to make way for traffic and new construction. For example, Brummerska hemmet (villa 13, an old people's home built in the 1890s) was cleared for the railway in the 1960s. To make way for the Kuntaliitto building, a group of three wooden houses built in 1897 by the Raajarikkoisten auttamisyhdistys, founded by private women, was demolished, and from the site of the Kaupunginteatteri the 'lower villas' 2, 3, 4 and 5, which comprised several rental flats, were demolished.