The bank building standing on an old industrial frame on Narva Road proves its ability to also serve as a public library. The obligation to survive various eras and situations is common to both buildings and people, Madli Kaljuste ponders.
A building at 11 Narva Road gives temporary shelter to The National Library of Estonia. On the wall of this former bank building a modest plaque states:
‘The Cultural Endowment Annual Award.
Architects M. Lõoke, J. Okas.
Completed: 1997’.
But when should a building be regarded as ready for appreciation and awards? Once it is completed? But when to consider a building completed? Once the construction ends? In ten, twenty or a hundred years? Should a building be appreciated when time has proven the persistence of the project or, conversely, its versatility? When a building has managed to keep users, including cleaners, maintainers, repairmen orbiting around it? Or in a romantic train of thought—when slow decay has taken over and the potency of the building’s ruins is also revealed? The time factor most definitely has a role to play.
Let´s imagine. From now on only buildings 10–30 years of age can be nominated for awards.
With the possible appearance of first signs of tiredness, the youngest laureates would be at least 10 years old. Architecture as a discipline known for its slowness would lag even more. But the amount of nominees (along with their quality?) would soar. A curious situation would appear, where projects are evaluated at their most vulnerable moment. If as humans we tend to be blind to our immediate history, then the recent past with its creative works often receives the harshest criticism. It may be in the question of aesthetics not yet veiled by nostalgia, or in the chosen materials showing first signs of ageing, or in adjustments in some core principles (an innovative material from 10–20 years back might have revealed its flipside of extensive environmental impact etc).
In 2023, the nominees could include, for instance, the building at 11 Narva Road with its possible overview as follows.
The building completed as Foreks Bank in 1997 stands on the industrial frame of the prior radio-electronics factory RET. An industrial area, somewhat curiously situated in the heart of the city, extended from Ahtri Street to Narva Road. In the 1990s, it was one of the first manufacturing sites in Tallinn to be transformed, preceding both Tselluloosi and Rotermann quarters.1 The transformation followed a familiar pattern including a period of raves and underground parties that accompanies any manufacturing area changing its outlook and purpose.2
Parda Street has aroused quiet interest and puzzlement in me for a long time already. The district’s former industrial past kind of explains the hectic spatial experience, augmented by the ’euro-repair’ veneers. Elements helping to reinforce the perceived flatness are most probably a fragmented set of owners, a lack of publicly accessible areas, as well as a kind of empirical fluttering—the thinness of the façade cladding amplifies the feeling that the surrounding space is a kind of illusion, easily peelable, portable, sellable. On the other hand, this 1990s’ translucent rawness, unconsciousness and straightforwardness of aspirations seems to hide in itself a kind of freedom lacking in the sleek contemporary industrial developments.
There is hardly a better pair of words than ‘a parking lot’ to describe the public realm on this side of Ahtri Street. On the other side of the block, windy, dusty and high traffic Narva Road is at a standstill waiting for the renewal plans3 to be implemented. Alongside its many lines of asphalt stands a bank building that proves its ability to serve as public library. This is quite an interesting turn of events, as the daily doings of both institutions, the bank as well as the library, are largely relying on lending, although with wholly different principles and purposes. On more practical kinds of days, one might wonder in awe how such institutions as libraries ever came about and moreover, how they still function. Libraries are true oases and quintessential expressions of the public good of ideas, thoughts, and knowledge.
However, perhaps libraries as public space are not wondrous at all but simply outlets for the innate human curiosity, sharing and kindness. The belief and cynical suggestion that greed, meanness and avarice are somehow more intrinsic to us humans are not self-evident facts but rather a self-fulfilling prophecy and a momentary collective delirium.4 We mustn’t forget that the formula for humankind’s so-called success as a species (and the double-edged sword wreaking havoc on the rest of the environment and fellow beings) is our unique ability to cooperate with each other on an unprecedentedly large scale (both in time and space). As a matter of fact both abstractions, money as well as written word, are expressions of collaboration and communication. The former is a promise of value5 while the latter, among other things, allows us to reach ideas that might be thousands of years old, written thousands of miles away.
One day also banks as conglomerates of investment and pension funds may appear curious archaic phenomena. In any case, with the triumph of virtual banking, even within the last twenty years the spatial requirements and logistical mechanism of banks have changed beyond recognition. Thus, banks no longer need a grand atrium extending through three floors, secured elevators for transporting cash or safe deposit boxes in the basement. The spatial particularities of a bank typology have lost their practical relevance, while spatial and economic impact of investment and pension funds on cities worldwide is ever growing and unavoidable.6
It is all the more interesting to observe the flexibility of the spaces that 26 years ago befitted the now defunct bank layout. Then again, it is not exactly surprising that the first floors seamlessly joined to serve private and corporate customers still function well as a public space. The safe deposit vault and archives are now used as the library storage, while the entrance hall, public areas as well as more concealed evacuation routes, offices and restoration workshops feature a temporary exhibition of the National Library’s art collection. This witty and spatially clever exposition is truly worth a visit.
It is already a platitude to note that a building lasts longer than the wishes (of the clients) responsible for their existence. The physical body tends to outlive the (current) needs. It is for this reason that architecture bears the ambiguous responsibility to accommodate momentary cravings whilst also interweaving them with the more elusive qualities of self-determination. It is tempting to use the word ‘indifference’ that can paradoxically also be expressive of a creative and enabling force. A brief internet surfing on the building yields unbelievably poor footage of the everchanging bank logos, name changes and money laundering scandals. The obligation to survive various times is common to both buildings and people, and some seem to survive deviant eras more gracefully than others. It is a used up axiom that architecture is a mirror of its times. But some mirrors tend to fade faster while others offer clear reflections of the changing images. In the 1990s, the steel mesh cladding on the building’s main façade could be viewed as an interpretation of Tallinn’s scaffolding-covered cityscape, oscillating between two states. It is a reference just as fitting to the surroundings a quarter of a century later—to a momentary state of the building as the National Library as well as to the everchanging nature of life and things at large.
At the present moment, the visitors of the building are welcomed by Mare Mikkof’s aluminium ladies. ‘The Pointing Woman’ next to the lift is standing side by side with an Eternity plant. Together they stop visitors from using the sinister-looking spiral staircase. Whether the railings are too low by current standards or there is a risk of hitting your head remains a mystery. The whole situation is reminiscent of a portrait of Mikoff in a TV programme documenting the moving of Tallinn Art Hall artist studios in 2022. The episode ends with a concerned question and a liberating answer.
The presenter (hesitatingly): ‘So the future is quite unknown…?’.
Mare Mikoff (somewhat cheerfully): ‘Ah, it doesn’t really matter’.7
One can only hope for similar continued confidence in being to both, the readers as well as to the bank building temporarily housing the library.
MADLI KALJUSTE is a freelance architect.
HEADER: office- and bank building Narva mnt 11, Tallinn. Photo: Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseum
PUBLISHED: Maja 112 (spring 2023), with main topic Moratorium
1 Triin Ojari, ‘Varakapitalistlik Tallinn ehk tehasest rahatempliks’, presentation at the opening of the small building of the National Library, YouTube video, 3.42, 07.01.2021.
2 Triin Ojari, ‘Varakapitalistlik Tallinn ehk tehasest rahatempliks’, presentation at the opening of the small building of the National Library, YouTube video, 14.09, 07.01.2021.
3 See also the Tallinn Main Street project by Kavakava.
4 See also David Graeber, ‘Debt: The First 5000 Years’, 2011.
5 E.g., the phrase ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of 5 pounds’ appears on all English banknotes.
6 See, for instance, the documentary exploring the connections between the housing crisis and financial markets ‘PUSH’, 2019, Fredrik Gertten
7 Pintsel pausile. Kunstihoone kolib: 2, ERR video archive, 8.17.
