THE FINNISH ROWHOUSE 1900–1960
From working-class housing to middle-class dream
The history of the Finnish rowhouse traces back to the lodgings provided for factory workers by Finland’s early industrial
entrepreneurs. The turn of the 19th century saw the rise of
working-class tenements built in straight rows parallel to
the city’s grid plan, each unit having its own entrance to a
shared yard. It was not until the Garden City revolutionized
urban planning in the early 20th century that the rowhouse
– with a front door facing the street and a back door to a
private yard – came to represent an aspirational lifestyle for
the Finns.
Finland discovered the rowhouse as a space-efficient, minimum-standard solution enabling even the smallest home
to be equipped with its own door to its own garden. Continental Europeans, too, adapted their own versions of the
traditional British terraced house and the greenbelt ideal of
the English Garden City. The Garden City or Garden Suburb
came to dominate turn-of-the-century housing policy, urban
planning and architecture across Europe. Garden Cities consisted of residential buildings of varied sizes, some housing
one or two families, others three or more in rowhouses.
Grandiose plans were also drawn up in Finland, but their
execution met with delays. In 1915 Eliel Saarinen drew up a
meticulous plan for the Munkkiniemi–Haaga district covering 800 hectares of undeveloped land extending Helsinki’s
urban perimeter. The plan comprised numerous rowhouse
complexes of various sizes, yet only a small fragment ever
saw the light of day.
Finland’s first modern rowhouse was built in 1916 in the
Helsinki villa district of Kulosaari, which dates from 1907. It
was the first of two buildings forming Ribbingshof, a townhouse complex by Armas Lindgren and Bertel Liljequist. The
nation’s first municipal rowhouses were designed by Birger
Federley and built in the Tampere district of Viinikka in 1918.
The shortages following the First World War marked the advent of type planning and the concept of ‘minimum-standard housing’ in European housing policy. The 1920s
marked a decade of rapid urban development in Finland. In
the 1930s Finnish architects discovered modernism – or
functionalism as it came to be known in the Nordic countries – and they applied its tenets to the task of addressing
fundamental human needs in housing design.
Most Finnish rowhouses built in the 1930s were intended
for the employees of factories and sanatoriums. Alvar Aalto
named the two rowhouses he designed for the medical
personnel of Paimio Sanatorium (1929–33) as “an elastic
system of adaptably-sized housing”. He was later hired
by the A. Ahlström Corporation to design two pulp mills,
one in Kauttua and the other Sunila. Aalto took innovative
adaptability to new heights in the rowhouses and terraced
houses he designed for employees of the Sunila pulp mill
(1936–39).
It was not until after the Second World War that the
rowhouse truly made its breakthrough. The communities
designed by Aarne Ervi and Kai Blomstedt for power companies in Lapland brought modern housing to the middle
of the northern wilderness. Elegant rowhouses were also
designed for mining communities by Märta Blomstedt and
Matti Lampén. Rowhouse variants of many sizes sprung up
around paper mills, with United Paper Mills commissioning
projects from Pekka Saarema, and pulp producer Säteri
engaging architects such as Martta Martikainen-Ypyä and
Ragnar Ypyä. Rowhouses were even added to the range of
standard solutions exported by Finnish wooden kit home
suppliers. Finnish prefabricated rowhouse elements were
exported as far afield as South America.
The model for the Finnish Garden City – or ‘Forest City’ –
was conceived in 1947 by Otto-I. Meurman, Finland’s first
professor of urban planning. Rowhouses, which he regarded
as a convenient solution for families with children, formed
the backbone of his garden suburbs, arranged in a loose pattern around the contours of the natural terrain, with multistorey blocks of flats forming a backdrop behind them.
The standard sizes and floor plans of post-war housing units
were dictated by the terms of State-subsidized housing
loans. Within those strict norms, many Finnish architects
nevertheless designed buildings of outstanding creative
merit. Tapiola Garden City – a new development built in
Espoo by non-profit enterprise Asuntosäätiö (the Housing
Foundation) – achieved international acclaim in the 1950s,
as did a rising generation of Finnish architects, most notably
Aulis Blomstedt, Aarne Ervi, Viljo Revell and Kaija and Heikki
Siren.
Heikki von Hertzen, director of the Housing Foundation,
was Finland’s most influential housing policy-shaper in the
1940s. Adapting the blueprint of Tapiola’s Garden City, the
Housing Foundation built the Jyväskylä district of Viitaniemi
and the Korkalovaara neighbourhood of Rovaniemi.
Following the municipal integration of greater Helsinki in
1946, a loose ring of new suburbs was constructed on its
outskirts. New rowhouse developments sprang up around
the edges of multi-storey housing in Herttoniemi, Lauttasaari, Munkkiniemi, Munkkivuori, Haaga and Maunula.
These sustainable gems of ‘everyday architecture’ were
designed by architects the likes of Jorma Järvi, Toivo Jäntti,
Oiva Nummiala, Esko Suhonen, Keijo Petäjä, Saara and Usko
Tilanterä, Eija and Olli Saijonmaa.
A number of rowhouses were selected for the first-ever Finland Builds exhibition in 1953. These included ‘Sahanmäki’,
a rowhouse project designed for the Helsinki suburb of
Maunula by Hilding Ekelund, and the ‘Economists’ Houses’
in Lauttasaari (1952) by Ahti and Toivo Korhonen. These
vied for attention alongside terraced houses designed by
Aalto for the Sunila pulp mill. To this day, Sahanmäki (1956)
arguably remains the most extensive, stylistically intact and
best-loved rowhouse community of its kind in Finland.
Worker’s housing from the early
20th Century. Port Arthur, Turku.
Photo: Riitta Nikula.
Flipping through the pages of The Finnish Architectural
Journal, one would assume that rowhouses had swept the
country by the 1950s. Statistics nevertheless confirm that
it was not until the ‘60s and ‘70s that rowhouses became
commonplace. As prosperity grew, strict standardization
was abandoned in favour of greater creative freedom in
residential architecture, with the classic grid plan replacing
the ‘Forest City’ as the new ideal in urban planning. Airy,
spacious atrium homes were built on prime property near
city centres, while more standardized, anonymous rows
of units rose in the middle of fields around smaller urban
communities.
Curated by Riitta Nikula
Exhibition Design by Timo Vikkula
Assisted by Juhana Lahti, Juho Haavisto,
Salla Bedard, Antti Aaltonen
Translation by Silja Kudel
Modern row house. Eija and Olli Saijonmaa
1959. Lokkikuja 5, Lauttasaari, Helsinki.
Photo: Riitta Nikula.
1
BIG CITY DREAMS, SMALL ROWHOUSES
Eliel Saarinen, Munkkiniemi–Haaga town plan, 1915.
Bird’s eye perspective and type-planned rowhouses.
Hollantilaisentie [street] 12–20, 1919–20.
Map of the Kulosaari villa district, Lars Sonck, Bertel Jung.
Ribbingshof townhouse complex, Armas Lindgren and Bertel Liljequist 1916–17.
Sketches by Armas Lindgren.
Alvar Aalto, Rowhouse for Töölö, inner-city Helsinki. Undergraduate assignment, 1919.
Drawing for Facade. Armas Lindgren 1916. Ribbingshof,
Kulosaari Helsinki.
2 EARLY SOCIAL HOUSING
Bertel Jung, Rowhouse development for Alppiharju, Helsinki, 1912.
Architectural plan and elevations. Never realized.
Birger Brunila and Otto-I. Meurman, Town plan for the wooden quarter of Käpylä,
Helsinki, first sketch, 1910s.
Blocks of flats, rowhouses and single-family homes.
Birger Federley, Lintulahti rowhouse development in the industrial precinct
of Lielahti near Tampere, 1917.
The last surviving rowhouse before its demolition.
Birger Federley, Municipal rowhouse development, Viinikka, Tampere, 1917.
Two of the three original houses survive.
Elias and Matti Paalanen, Type plans commissioned by the Finnish social welfare
administration and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, 1922.
Type-planned rowhouses.
Otto-I. Meurman, Town plan for the municipality of Riihimäki, 1922.
Scale model and accompanying elevation sketches.
Cover of the guidebook for the First
Finnish Housing Congress 1917.
3 THE BREAKTHROUGH OF MODERNISM
Hilding Ekelund, Atrium house plan, 1931.
In an interview with Kyösti Ålander from 1970, Hilding Ekelund
commented as follows on the Finnish breakthrough of functionalism.
Excerpt: KÅ: “What was your initial reaction?”
HE: “I guess I can say that my reaction was quite positive.
I have never been one for extravagance, but I was also
impressed by the movement itself, its social orientation
and also by the logic of functionalism. The first projects
I saw must have been in Sweden, some of Markelius’ work.
Markelius’ visit to Finland and his lecture at the Finnish
Association of Architects (SAFA) in Turku was a major
eye-opener for everyone. He showed his concert hall and
some of his overseas projects, the giant Van Nelle tobacco
factory in Rotterdam and so on, if I remember correctly.
That made the whole thing clear to me…”
Viljo Myyrinmaa, Rowhouse plan. Undergraduate project.
Alvar Aalto, Rowhouse/terraced houses from the 1930s and ‘40s.
Rowhouses designed for physicians and medical personnel
at Paimio Sanatorium.
Terraced house for A. Ahlström’s Kauttua mill, 1938.
Housing for employees of the Strömberg electromechanical
company, 1945–46, Vaasa.
Housing for factory personnel at the Yhteissisu automotive plant,
1945–46, Vanaja, Hämeenlinna.
On screen: Designing housing for Kauttua mill.
Pedestrian views of the Aaltopuisto housing development
in Vaasa and the Yhteissisu automotive plant.
Plan for the row house. Viljo Myyrinmaa,
student work 1960s. MFA.
4 THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND
THE RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD
Power plant communities in Lapland: Pyhäkoski village in Muhos by
Aarne Ervi, 1941–49 and Pirttikoski village in Rovaniemi by Kai Blomstedt, 1959.
Erik Bryggman, Housing development for the Laivateollisuus shipbuilding
company in Pansio, Turku, 1945–49. Type-planned interlinked houses.
Karl Gustaf Stigzelius, Workers’ housing at the Säynätsalo mills,
Jyväskylä, 1945–47. Type-planned interlinked houses.
The Selvaag or ‘Norwegian’ house.
Norwegian architect Olav Selvaag’s affordable post-war housing
prototype was adapted in many parts of Finland.
Anna-Liisa Mertaoja-Nylund, the Kanervala development
in Joensuu and Lehtikuusentie in Kuopio, mid-1950s.
Uki Heikkinen, Karjasilta housing development, Oulu, 1957–61.
Other examples include the Hietalahti development
in Vaasa and the Niinisalo garrison.
Pyhäkoski power plant. Aarne Ervi 1949.
Photo: Roos/MFA.
5 INDUSTRIALIZATION, URBANIZATION
AND GROWING PROSPERITY
Forest industry
Säteri Oy, Valkeakoski, Martta Martikainen-Ypyä and Ragnar Ypyä, approx. 1945–.
United Paper Mills, Kaipola, Jämsä, Pekka Saarema, 1953–64.
Suburbs
Herttoniemi, Helsinki: Jorma Järvi and Toivo Jäntti, Karhutie, [street] 25 and 26, 1949.
The first rowhouses produced by kit home supplier Puutalo Oy.
Kissanmaa, Tampere: Toivo Jäntti, complex of eight rowhouses, Kissanmaa, 1953–54.
Maunula, Helsinki: Hilding Ekelund, Sahanmäki rowhouse development, 22 rowhouses, 1956.
Lauttasaari, Helsinki: Ahti and Esko Korhonen, ‘Economists’ Houses’ housing cooperative,
three rowhouses enclosing a shared yard, 1952.
Saara and Usko Tilanterä, Tiirasaarentie [street] 6–8, 1954–55.
Eija and Olli Saijonmaa, Lokkitie [street] 5, 1959.
Keijo Petäjä, Luoteisväylä [road] 23, suite of three rowhouses, 1958.
The architect described the waterfront view from his home’s small windows as follows:
“When I move around my room, the view from my small windows changes constantly.
It seems to be in constant flux, even if nature outside seems frozen. You don’t get the
same effect with panoramic windows. Actually, I can see the whole landscape through
my three little windows, even though they make up only two per cent of the wall.”
Herttoniemi, Helsinki: Oiva Nummiala, Karhutie [street] 32–34 and Susitie [street] 23–27, 1953/1955.
Kaj Englund: Scale model of a rowhouse.
Row houses under construction. Hilding
Ekelund 1956. Sahanmäki area, Maunula,
Helsinki. Photo: Unknown/MFA.
6 FOREST CITIES
In his 1947 book Asemakaavaoppi (The Basics of Town Planning), Otto-I. Meurman described urban planning as a tree that
grows from the soil of the surrounding natural and social terrain, spreading wellbeing throughout the community. By this
Meurman meant that new housing should adapt to the natural contours of the terrain, with spacious greenbelts interspersed
in between buildings. The term ‘Forest City’ was originally coined as a critique of ‘non-urban’ environments, but it gradually
crept into wider usage without negative connotations. The term was even used as an affectionate nickname.
Tapiola
In 1946 Heikki von Hertzen published the book Koti vaiko kasarmi lapsillemme (Home or garrison for our children?), in which
he voiced a scathing condemnation of high-rise cities and proposed the Garden City scheme as ideal for all future housing
developments. As the director of Asuntosäätiö (The Housing Foundation, founded 1951) von Hertzen oversaw the planning
and construction of Tapiola Garden City in Espoo, which got under way in 1953. The town plan was drafted by Meurman.
Unfettered by municipal regulations, the project was innovative in all respects. The architects chosen to design the Garden
City’s various buildings showed considerable creative ambition – at least within the limits imposed by State-subsidized
housing loans. The landscape architects also played an influential role in this project.
Aulis Blomstedt, Menninkäisentie [street] rowhouses, 1954.
Viljo Revell, Koulukallio rowhouse, 1954.
Kaija and Heikki Siren, Rowhouses on Kontiontie [street], 1955.
These four rowhouses contain 47 units in total, which stands as a pioneering
achievement in standardized prefab components and new construction technology.
Kehrääjä Housing Cooperative (1960) is a spaciously laid out variation of the
rowhouses on Nallenpolku [street].
Otsonpesä Housing Cooperative on the waterfront of Otsolahti, 1958–59.
This comb-like chain of five large apartments represents heights of elegance
beyond the means of State-subsidized housing developers.
Viitaniemi neighbourhood, Jyväskylä.
This residential neighbourhood planned by Jorma Järvi brought two new house-types
to Jyväskylä, the high-rise block (by Alvar Aalto) and the rowhouse.
A total of 16 rowhouses were built between 1956 and 1964 in this wide-open waterfront
setting in line with general planning directives issued by the Housing Foundation.
The architects were Keijo Petäjä, Raimo Halonen, Juha Vikkula, Matti Haapala,
Jorma Paatola, Anna-Liisa Hoikkala-Uski and Erkki Kantonen.
Korkalorinne neighbourhood, Rovaniemi.
This Arctic version of Tapiola Garden City was built in Rovaniemi between 1958 and 1961.
Both the town plan and individual buildings are by Alvar Aalto, though only a small part of the
overall plan ever materialized. Landscaping by Jussi Jännes.
Small screen: pedestrian views of various projects around Finland.
Large screen: film documentaries of key rowhouse developments.
Illustration from the book Asemakaavaoppi
by Otto-Iivari Meurman 1947.