More on uses for courtyard space

A couple of years back Anne Mäkinen of one of JHJ’s favourite institutions, Helsinki’s City Museum, wrote about the way many of the city’s inner courtyards are disappearing. In keeping with priorities enshrined into planning policy in 1987, she writes, the planners’ main concern are facades. Only the outside edges of blocks are  being left behind while the insides are being razed (ouch! such a word, but oh, so apt). Courtyard life has to make way for cars sometimes, or for more flexible i.e. productive work spaces, but more often and more recently and visibly, for commercial uses. Glass roofed shopping centres mostly. Here’s one, Halonen clothes shop on the north Esplanade at number 37 (nice, boring, long-lasting clothes for people who can’t wear text on their person. End of plug, ed.).

Personally we’d like to say “could do better” but in fact, in her article Dr Mäkinen gives this intervention by architects Gullichsen and Vormala a thumbs up.

In the same article, she notes that

The principles of development for the commercial centre drafted in 1986 are now being applied to the Empire blocks along the south side of the Senate Square. Tuomas Rajajärvi, Director of Planning from the City Planning Department, expressed his ideas about roofing over the blocks in Helsingin Sanomat on 17th October 2997. The glass roofs envisaged by Rajajärvi would totally alter the historial milieu …

Later she notes that this razing process has, despite the losses it creates in the name of universal efficiency

not caused any noteworthy discussion.

As with other Helsinki preoccupations, you might say “not causing noteworthy discussion” could be a sign of consensus. Then again, it might not.

That reference: Helsingin Katoavat Sisapihat or Hesinki’s vanishing courtyards, was published in Ark 2008, number 2, pp. 88 -91

Jees Helsinki Jees in Finnish or more constructive uses for courtyard space

Perhaps JHJ should be published in Finnish. In part at least. Or written partly in English, partly in Finnish. Or the whole translated. What an almighty opportunity to waste time online that would provide.

So instead, let’s go visual. Our protagonist’s (my) day today, Saturday 28th November 2009.

Up dark and early. The tram stop sign gives you the time I arrived at my destination and gives a hint of the amount of daylight. OK, it’s a bit small: 08.44.

Into the amazing former courtyard, the Aleksandria study centre of the University of Helsinki (its Language Centre) on Fabianinkatu, by architects Davidsson and Tarkela, duly showered with praise/awards.

Only problem – terrible atmosphere. In many senses. Over seventy computers for candidates for the official translator exam, too warm and no water fountain. Oh, and a few more computers on the first two floors. Here’s the space from the outside, or rather from the courtyard.

Here’s a view out from where I sat and struggled with legalese from 9 to 16.3o.

By the time I got out the sunshine that had so tantalised us through the slats had been replaced by the moon.

Here, on my walk home, Fabianinkatu at Kasarmintori, with newly refurbished buildings and newly landscaped square. The trees will no doubt grow in a few decades making photography in the future rather more challenging.

Uses for courtyard space: parking

The history of those inner courtyards in Helsinki is full of fascinating stories of social and cultural change, oh and environmental change.

These days many of Helsinki’s courtyards are, alas, given over for car parking and, as you can see, the odd bicycle squeezed in around the edges. Oddly there seems to be too little space in many Helsinki yards for bikes, meaning that folks have to leave them on the street. Ideally of course, the courtyard buildings that were once in use as wood stores, laundries, saunas and the like, for the use of all inhabitants, should be turned into bike storage.

For those seeking to keep cities people-friendly the good news is that in fact the use of such space for parking is in fact illegal. The bad news is that the City never gets involved in this form of criminal behaviour.

At least hasn’t until now.

Constructive uses for courtyard space 1: Adult education

As a child I had a pretty straightforward idea of what a town or city looks and feels like. The Helsinki I knew was, like much of continental Europe’s towns, made up of so-called perimeter blocks or “kortteli” to Finnish speakers and plain old block to Americans. Several storeys high, walls rising out of the pavement (sidewalk) they’re built so that you barely notice one building change into the next as you pass. Across the road there’s often another one, of similar height and similar feel. This perimeter block on the left (“Peura” in Kruunuhaka) faces the sea so some of the buildings are only on one side of the street but it still has a key feature of a block, the middle.

That’s how it was planned – back in the 1870, starting with the barracks on Liisankatu for the use of the short-lived Finnish army that was established then.

Architects have always had to follow rules about heights, distances and other dimensions, which have been carefully calculated to allow light, air, movement (traffic) in sensible proportions. Besides following planning and building regulations, they’ve also had to make sure they design what a client wants. But having said that, even if a client wanted to obsctruct a sea view (for instance) both the municipal authorities and, on would hope, the elected politicians would be against it, however much money or glory the developer has. Still, it’s not exactly unknown for urban development to be mired in corruption.

Back to morphology. A perimeter block creates a semi-public space on the inside of the block. Their uses differ from place to place and time to time, season to season but even today they are important places for the city’s inhabitants. So we at JHJ thought it might be nice to take a peek into some of these and look at how they have been and are being used in Helsinki.

Below, buildings from the 1900s, 1920s and 1960s create a courtyard inside the block but also a potentially awkward change in height. So the “step” is actually made up of a building that houses garages (left) and an adult education classroom (right). Here in use on a late November Sunday.