Rauman asuinalueet Onnela, Nummi, Asevelikylä, III kaupunginosa

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

The residential areas of Onnela, Nummi, Asevelikylä and the area in the third district of Rauma are representative examples of typical Finnish residential areas of their time. The areas are uniform thanks to simultaneous construction, uniform plans and materials. Their preservation has been aided, among other things, by the repair, alteration and construction guidelines drawn up by the City of Rauma for its old residential areas in 1983.

The site comprises two separate residential areas, each containing parts of different ages. One area adjoins Vanha Rauma; the other is located in the northern part of the town, in the third district. Together the areas form a good, layered whole illustrating small-scale building, town planning and the growth of the town from the latter part of the 19th century to the early 1960s.

The layout and building stock of the areas (streets, plots, residential buildings, courtyards and outbuildings) have survived in keeping with their period of construction, intact and uniform, although in some places repairs have created a mixed appearance. In the detached house areas, the buildings are sited on the plots in the same way: generally the residential building is close to the street, the outbuildings are at the back of the plot, the street boundary usually has a hedge or wooden fence and a gate, and the courtyard planting is lush.

South of Vanha Rauma, within the buffer zone of the World Heritage Site, lie Onnela and Nummi. The first town plan of Onnela was completed in 1876; its residential houses date from the end of the 19th century to the 1920s. The wooden residential buildings stand along the streets, the outbuildings are at the back of the plots, and the plots are surrounded by board fences. Infill construction in the area has been done skilfully. The first town plan of Nummi, south of Onnela, was completed in 1915. Wooden houses from the 1910-20s, varying in size according to the plots, were built to model drawings, and the courtyards follow the regulations set for the plots. The houses stand along the street, separated from it by a small front yard. South of Nummi, in Asevelikylä, the wooden residential buildings, often rendered, were generally designed by Helena Vainio in 1953-54. Street names such as Kollaankatu refer to the history of the area.

The second residential area complex is located north of the railway, at the northern end of Syväraumankatu. The third district was included in plans expanding the built-up areas of the town in 1922 (Andersin) and 1937 (Kaalamo). Rauma's first compact detached house area for single families, along Saukonkatu and Säikänkatu, forms an attractive street environment. Small front gardens lie in front of the houses, and the actual gardens are placed in the middle of the block. The plans were drawn up by the town building office in 1939. The small single-storey wooden houses were built by the residents themselves, many of them by workers at the Lönnström factory.

The Ruotsalaistaloalue is a type-house area built during the war years with Swedish funding, where the single-storey wooden houses stand on their plots with the gable facing the street. The Perhetalot on Suokarinkatu, built in 1946-47, are log-built two-storey rental blocks, and the two-storey small apartment blocks, rendered, at the northern end of Syväraumankatu are typical buildings of the post-war reconstruction period. Detached houses of that time typically have a furnished attic storey, as in the one-and-a-half-storey rendered houses of the 1950s on Merimiehenkatu. The Ota row houses represent a building type characteristic of suburban areas. The row houses designed by Keijo Valli in 1959 have brick gables, and the rendered sections of the stepped flats are in different colours. Behind them are the white flat-roofed row houses designed by Veijo Martikainen in 1962.

History

Outside the town of Vanha Rauma, the first building area expansion plans were drawn up in the 1860s, but construction only started later. One of the early grid plan blocks is the Onnela area, between Vanha Rauma and Eteläkatu. The buildings were designed by, among others, Joh. Lindegren and Arvi Forsman, and in the 20th century by W.Williams, M. Isaksson, Kaarlo Wirtanen and Kaino Kari. The blocks were divided into smaller parts by fire lanes.

The villa town type town plan (1915) prepared by the Rauma building office was implemented in the Nummi area, next to Onnela. Because Nummi was intended as an area where affordable housing could be built on leasehold plots, the plots were not made large. Standard plans were drawn up in the 1910s and 1920s by M. Isaksson, Arvi Leikari, W.Williams, K. Virtanen and K. Kari. In the post-war reconstruction period, the Asevelikylä area was built next to Nummi according to the 1950 town plan by Väinö Tuukkanen. The town plan changed in the 1960s allowed residential buildings there to be extended on the courtyard-side wing.

The III district was part of the town's building area expansion plan in the 1920s-1930s. Near the Lönnström factory, along Saukonkatu and Säikänkatu, a uniform detached house area was built before the war, where residents built their own houses to meet the needs of the factory workers. Most were factory workers, although this was not a requirement for obtaining a plot. The Ruotsalaistalot in the same district from the war years bear a donation plaque reading “From the people of Sweden. Av svenska folket. 1940”. In the post-war reconstruction period, the Lönnström industrial plant built housing along Syväraumankatu. The family houses were built as rental houses owned by the town.

In Rauma, terraced houses were built in the 1950s-60s, either individually or in small groups, alongside point-block apartment buildings. No proper suburban areas emerged in Rauma at that time. New terraced house plots were reserved, among other places, on the Otan rocks, close to the buildings from the post-war reconstruction period.