ARCHITECTURE
The aim of the work is to achieve harmony and universal beauty. I value milieus and particular atmospheres carrying it. Sometimes I convey it with a single line or a geometric detail that can evolve into a deeper spatial gesture.
A building with a strong character is easy to hate. Or to love. Take, for example, Tallinn City Hall—few are indifferent to it. Many see the City Hall as an ingenious artificial landscape and urban stage, while others consider it a relict of the Soviet occupation that is unfit for a free Estonia, just like the Sakala Centre that was demolished in 2007. There are many other lesser or better known buildings from the Soviet period that are architecturally ambitious, but unacceptable to many for aesthetic or ideological reasons.
The new terminal is not just a building, it is above all an urban act, showing the way to and perhaps even anticipating the integration of the harbour and the entire seafront area.
Paide State Secondary School is an excellent example of the mutually complementary dialogue between a historical space and contemporary architecture.
Türi Middle School is a well-executed example of a contemporary school—breaking preconceptions about the organisation of space, encouraging new practices that involve alterations by the users, and offering spatial solutions for socialising as well as withdrawing.
Over the course of the past thirty years, designing school spaces has migrated from being a marginally positioned subject matter to the centre of focus in the field of architecture, supported by scientific studies and continual research and development. The spaces for learning have acquired a new image and meaning.
What has taken place in the field of apartment building construction over the last 30 years? Indrek Rünkla draws out some of the more significant aspects from his own personal experience.
For the current article, I spoke with two architect and interior architect tandems whose cooperation has become their preferred form of creative effort: Kalle Vellevoog and Tiiu Truus as well as Mihkel Tüür, Ott Kadarik and Kadri Tamme.
Little was built following the re-establishment of Estonian independence in the early 1990s, however, the debates held and practices established largely came to set the foundations for the dominant issues in the architectural field in the past decades.
The stories we have heard ever since the beginning of the century about the merchandising of museums and the transformation of all culture into an unending festival are greatly exaggerated. The new cultural buildings are good examples of state-commissioned public spaces that are quite self-aware with no desire to go along with the general trends of commercialisation.
