Osuusliikkeiden ja teollisuuden Sörnäinen (Andelsrörelsernas och industrins Sörnäs)

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

The monumental red-brick administrative buildings of Elanto and Osuustukkukauppa (OTK) in Sörnäinen, Helsinki, together with the associated food-industry production plants, reflect the position and activities of the co-operative societies in the 20th century. The administrative buildings along Hämeentie, which serve as urban landmarks, have particular symbolic significance.

The ideological co-operatives Elanto and OTK operated side by side between Hämeentie and Sörnäisten rantatie for most of the 20th century. The tall red-brick head office towers on the corner plots mark the beginning and end points of the co-operatives' blocks along Hämeentie. The most important administrative and industrial buildings of both were designed by architect Väinö Vähäkallio.

The most significant surviving group of buildings in the block of OTK, the national central co-operative, branches off at the corner of Hämeentie and Käenkuja. There rises the former head office completed in 1933, with its round-ended, nine-storey functionalist tower section. Käenkuja has a margarine factory from the 1940s, a technochemical factory and a coffee roastery.

The tower marking the corner of the Pääkaupunkiseudun osuuskauppa Elanto is connected to a classicist, eight-storey administrative building completed in 1928, whose wall-like facade continues along Kaikukatu. The Elanto block includes, among others, Elanto's oldest bakery from 1907, a large bakery designed by Vähäkallio and a seven-storey central warehouse from the 1920s. The grain silos and vegetable store date from the 1930-40s. The oldest building in the block is the former match factory from 1874.

In the third industrial block along Sörnäisten rantatie are, among others, Kokos Oy, which produced edible fats, with the oldest part of the building dating from 1911, as well as the buildings of Kone Oy, Oy Gottfr. Strömberg and Helsingin Mylly Oy. The most prominent are the tall grain silos from the years 1941-50. The buildings of Oy Strömberg Ab date from the 1890s and 1910s.

After the original use of the Sörnäinen industrial blocks ended at the end of the 20th century, the buildings were taken into new use, mainly as residential, educational and office premises. Although buildings have been demolished and new ones built, the area has retained a varied industrial environment.

History

In the 19th century, production plants were deliberately built outside the urban structure for aesthetic reasons and because of the fire hazard. Early industrial premises in Sörnäinen included the Andstén faience and tile factory, founded in 1842 and located in the OTK block, and the match factory built in 1874, which has survived as a building in the Elanto block. Before this, the Sörnäinen shoreline had consisted only of villa plots.

Industrialisation was boosted by the establishment of the Sörnäinen harbour and by the railway built from Pasila to the harbour, which opened to traffic in 1863. Itäinen Viertotie (Hämeentie), the capital's second main road artery, delimited the industrial and working-class residential areas as it was built up from 1850 onwards: industrial workplaces concentrated on the east side of the road, within reach of the Sörnäinen harbour and railway, while workers' housing was located on the west side.

Osuusliike Elanto and Helsingin Osuuskauppa emerged at the beginning of the 20th century as Finnish counterparts of the international cooperative movement. Finnish cooperative activity was set in motion by the transition from an agrarian society to a society of industry and commerce. Migration flowed from the countryside to the towns.

Osuusliike Elanto, the cooperative of the capital region, was founded in 1905 as a production cooperative for the bakery sector. In 1906 a plot on Hämeentie was acquired in Sörnäinen, close to the harbour and the workers' residential areas. Previously the plot had housed, among other things, a soap factory and a match factory. The first production building, a bakery, was completed in 1907. Elanto soon expanded into a wide-ranging consumer cooperative, which established, among other things, bread and milk shops in almost every district of the capital region. The production, storage and administration buildings on the Sörnäinen plot were built in 1906-1955. The key buildings were completed in the 1920s and 1930s, and the architect Väinö Vähäkallio designed most of them. The block plan he drew up as an overall plan was only partially realised. The curved alignment of Lintulahdenkuja on the south-eastern edge of the plot follows the old shoreline. The Backas farm in Helsinki rural municipality, which was essentially connected with Elanto's production activities, was acquired during the First World War.

The workers' cooperative stores established the Osuustukkukauppa OTK wholesale cooperative, alongside which the ideological cooperative federation Kulutusosuuskuntien Keskusliitto (KK) took shape. Osuustukkukauppa OTK began operations in 1918, distributing and producing goods for member societies across the country. OTK bought the plot to the north of Elanto's in 1922. Previously the site had housed the Andstén tile factory and, briefly in the 1910s, Ab Lukko Oy. Before OTK, the eastern corner had already been sold to Paraisten Kalkkivuori Oy. In addition to the buildings of the tile and lock factory, over the following years the KK building department designed several multi-storey buildings for the plot, including a central warehouse (1927), a margarine factory (1930), a head office (1933), a mill building (1935), and a technochemical factory and coffee roastery (1939). The overall plan for the block, of which only small parts were realised, was drawn up by the architect Väinö Vähäkallio in 1926. At the turn of the 21st century, buildings were demolished from the block and new ones were built, as a result of which the block's character as an administrative and industrial area has largely changed into one of offices and housing. New buildings include a residential apartment block built along Hämeentie, four point blocks in the central part of the block, and Partek's head office, built on the plot of the so-called concrete factory along Sörnäisten rantatie.

Oy Kokos was founded in 1910 as a producer of cooking fats made from palm oil. The single-storey factory building, with a four-storey tower section, was completed in 1911. The factory was extended in 1912. Margarine production ended in 1926, when Kone Oy bought the Kokos Oy property. The old margarine factory was raised by one storey in 1928. The buildings clustered around the courtyard were built in 1935-1954. The steel and glass roof covering the courtyard was completed in 1948. Opposite the coconut factory, along Haapaniemenkatu, the separator factory of Oy Kone ja Silta Ab was completed in 1916, designed by the architects Armas Lindgren and Bertel Liljequist. Kone Oy's operations on the property ended in 1967.

Urban growth and structural change in industry began to affect the industry of the Sörnäinen blocks in the latter part of the 20th century. Industrial plots that had become cramped and valuable in the cities were unsuited to the processes of industrial activity in the 21st century. The new use of the industrial blocks became residential, educational and office use, which in part led to extensive changes and demolition work, particularly in the OTK block.