Tampereen Hämeenkatu, Hämeensilta ja Keskustori

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

Hämeenkatu is the axis that bisects the city centre of Tampere and its main commercial street. The wide, boulevard-type park street dates from the town plans of the 19th century. The present building stock along the street, 3-6 storeys high, consists of commercial, bank and public buildings. Its western terminus is Aleksanteri Church from the 1880s, and its eastern terminus is the railway station from the 1930s. Hämeensilta, the bridge over the Tammerkoski rapids, connects the two sides of the centre, and from the bridge there is a view of the Tammerkoski national landscape. West of Hämeensilta, Hämeenkatu cuts through Keskustori, which now lies almost on the same site as the market square marked as the church square in Tampere's first town plan, drawn up in 1775.

The oldest buildings on Hämeenkatu west of Hämeensilta date from the Art Nouveau period, and east of the bridge there are Neo-Renaissance buildings. Vanhakirkko, at the edge of Keskustori, is one of the earliest neoclassical cross churches in the country and the oldest public building in the old town centre. A Neo-Renaissance town hall stands beside the square, and the two sides of the square are lined with commercial buildings that tell of the city's vigorous development at the end of the 19th century: Sandberg House, Commerce, Palander House, Selin House and Sumelius House.

Among the building stock of Hämeenkatu are also some representative functionalist buildings, such as Tempo House beside Hämeensilta, which is a representative example of the 'white functionalism' of the 1930s. The six-storey residential and commercial building housed a small department store on its ground floor, office premises on the second floor and apartments on the upper floors. The building also includes a roof terrace and a gallery section on the first floor on the side of the rapids, functioning as a pavement. The building was designed by the architect Bertel Strömmer and belongs to the selection of masterpieces of Finnish modernism from the late 1920s to the 1970s accepted by the international DOCOMOMO organisation.

Hämeensilta is a single-span arch bridge completed in 1929, whose load-bearing parts are reinforced concrete and whose facades are clad in reddish granite from Kalvola. The bridge has four sculptures donated by Commercial Counsellor Rafael Haarla and carved by Wäinö Aaltonen in 1927-1929, Pirkkala-themed works titled Merchant, Tax Collector, Hunter and Maiden of Finland, which are among the most significant representatives of the classicist sculptural trend of the 1920s.

"Hämeensilta is the core of Hämeenkatu, whose silhouette of arches and statues is the calling card of Tampere, an image by which the city is recognised even beyond its borders. It is also the core of the whole city, where the stream of people and life intersects with the current of the rapids confined to its channel. It is a meaningful scene, for the power of these two currents has created Tampere", writer Väinö Linna has said of Hämeensilta in Tampere.

History

Hämeenkatu and the present-day Keskustori were laid out in the town plan approved in 1779. The name of Raatihuone Poikkikatu became established as Hämeenkatu in 1807. The western end of Hämeenkatu was Kirkkopuisto, and its eastern end was a new wide timber bridge at the crossing point of the Tammerkoski rapids. After the fire of 1865, chief architect C.A. Edelfelt drew up a new town plan in 1868, in which Hämeenkatu was widened into a park street serving as a firebreak. The Kyttälä area was incorporated into the town in 1871, and the railway running through the incorporated area was opened in 1876. A 30-metre-wide extension of Hämeenkatu, with its waterfront park, was opened as a main street in the plan drawn up by town architect F. L. Calonius.

In the 18th century Hämeenkatu resembled a village street, and the buildings lining it were single-storey wooden houses. In the first half of the 19th century the street was home mainly to craftsmen and merchants. Hämeenkatu acquired its character as a major commercial street in the 1890s, as industrialisation made the town prosperous and caused Tampere to grow, and as neo-Renaissance and Jugend-style residential and commercial blocks were built along the street. Aleksanterin kirkko was built at the western end of Hämeenkatu in 1881. Public buildings were erected on the edge of the present-day Keskustori as early as the beginning of the 19th century. The town hall, the fire engine house and the prison, that is, the 'korttikaali', were placed on one plot, which also contained a sauna.

The church designed by Charles Bassi in the Intendentinkonttori was completed on the edge of the square in 1824. The church was restored in 1953-1954 to designs by architect Nils Erik Wickberg. The bell tower designed by architect C.L. Engel was built in 1828 at the end of the town's main street at that time, Kauppakatu. In 1835 a clock with four faces, visible in all four directions, was acquired for the stone and timber Empire-style bell tower built on the stone foundation of the cellar of Tammerkoski manor, from clockmaker Juho Jaakonpoika Könni of Ilmajoki. The present town hall was completed in 1890. The Tampere theatre designed by Kauno S. Kallio was completed in 1913, and the library building in the 1920s. The new Hämeensilta bridge, crossing Tammerkoski, was completed in 1929, with the Pirkkala statues by Wäinö Aaltonen.

The name of Kauppatori was changed to Keskustori in 1936. The square continues to be developed; the 1996 ideas competition was won by a working group led by Erkki Karvala and Antero Markelin.